Authors: Cathy MacPhail
‘See if you say one more thing about the size of my bum I’ll thump ye,’ Grace said.
I pretended to be shocked. ‘Are you allowed to thump your mates in this gang?’
‘No way.’ Lauren offered me a bit of chewing gum. ‘But you’re not allowed to slag them off either.’
‘We stick up for our m-m-mates,’ Sonya stuttered deliberately, daring me to say a word about it. I didn’t. I never would again.
I looked at Grace. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
Grace looked away from me and I knew it would take more than an apology to make Grace happy about me being her mate.
I could see a lot of puzzled stares as I sat there. Everyone wondering what was going on. It made me smile. A mystery, and I love mysteries.
Suddenly Heather came hurrying up to us, her tray
in her hands. Her mouth was hanging open and she couldn’t take her eyes off me. ‘What are you doing sitting here … with
them
?’ She looked around as if they were a bad smell. ‘Have they kidnapped you?’
‘Do you care? Will you pay the ransom?’ I asked.
‘I’d tell them to keep you.’
Wizzie blew a pink bubble. ‘Might just do that,’ she said.
Heather didn’t know what to say next. ‘Let me by,’ she finally muttered, staring at Grace’s big feet spread out in the passage.
I spread my feet out too. ‘Go another way,’ I told her.
She stood for a moment, unsure of what to do, shaking with anger. Then she turned on her heel and stamped away from us.
‘Heather won’t stand up to anyone on her own,’ I said.
Wizzie raised the eyebrow with the earring in it. It jiggled. ‘That’s good to know,’ she said.
‘So, is that me in?’ I asked.
‘Not quite,’ Lauren said.
‘Think it’s going to be that easy?’ Grace said.
‘We’ve decided you’ve got to do something to prove you’re worthy to be one of us.’ Lauren told me.
‘You mean, kicking your butts all over the football pitch wasn’t enough?’
‘We let you win,’ Grace said and turned her back on me.
‘Is this, like, a test?’ I asked. I didn’t like the sound of this. I’d heard about some of the boy gangs in the town and the daft initiation tests they had to get into the gang. One boy had supposedly died in very mysterious circumstances during one of those tests.
No. I wasn’t doing anything that involved grievous bodily harm, especially if it was my body that was going to be harmed. I wasn’t going to tie myself down on the railway tracks either, and try to escape before the next train splattered me all over the place. I wasn’t that desperate to be a Hell Cat.
‘So what is it I have to do?’ I asked.
‘Nothing much,’ Wizzie said. ‘Just impress us.’
Impress them? How was I ever going to impress the Hell Cats with their wild ways? They had done everything.
Abseil off the Erskine Bridge? Kidnap the prime minister?
But I knew I had to think of something. And it had to be good.
I hardly saw where I was going as I walked home. I was so lost in thought I almost fell over Junior Bonnar, and his three cases, coming out of our close.
‘I’ve just been at your door, Terry,’ he said.
‘Have you? What for?’
‘This is me off to Majorca.’ (He pronounced it Matchorca.) ‘Me and my bird,’ he went on. ‘I asked your mammy if I could leave my keys with her, and she said yes, the darlin’. So I put them through your letterbox.’
A taxi drew up then and Junior waved it down. ‘That’s my taxi now,’ he said.
I stood by as he climbed into the back. ‘If your mammy could water my plants I’d be really grateful, hen.’
‘No problem, Junior.’ He looked so excited to be going on holiday, like a little boy. ‘Have a nice time!’ I called after him.
He stuck his head out of the car window. ‘Thanks, Terry,’ he said, grinning. ‘By the way, my car keys are there as well, so you can use the car any time you want. OK?’
I stood waving Junior off, beaming like an idiot. ‘You can use the car any time you want,’ he had said.
It was like a gift falling into my hands. Junior’s car. I knew then what I was going to do to impress the Hell Cats. I was going to take them for a joyride.
The car keys lay on the mat behind the door, along with one of Junior’s badly spelt notes.
I picked up the keys and sat for ages, just staring at them.
Junior was off with his ‘bird’. (Junior had a ‘bird’? He was full of surprises.) He’d be already at the airport
enjoying the duty-free. This was Mum’s night for her Spanish class. She went straight to the local college after work. She wouldn’t be home until late. Mum need never know. I would be back before she would … either that or my body parts would be scattered all over a dark and lonely road somewhere.
Junior had let me drive his car round the car park so often, sitting beside me, showing me how to use the accelerator, the brake and clutch. Surely going out on the road couldn’t be that different?
But what if Wizzie and the rest didn’t think it was so daring? They probably went joyriding every night for a laugh. Well, I decided, I would have to take that chance.
I phoned Wizzie first. ‘You contact the others. I’ll meet you at the retail park.’
‘The retail park?’ Wizzie sounded surprised.
The only retail park we had in the town was full of empty, vacant shops.
‘That’ll be deserted this time of night,’ she went on. ‘Hey, you’re not planning to turn into a vampire, are you? That kind of shock we don’t need.’
‘Wait and see,’ I said mysteriously.
Of course the retail park would be deserted. That’s why it was perfect. Lots of wide turning areas, lots of
space. Nobody about. After all, I didn’t actually want to trash Junior’s car.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland as soon as I slipped into the front seat. As if I’d shrunk in size. The car seemed too big. As it was I could hardly see over the steering wheel. I must be mad. What was I thinking about?
Then my nerve came back. Junior was one sandwich short of a picnic. If Junior could drive, then so could I. Go for it, girl!
I made so much noise revving up the engine I was sure the neighbours would come shooting out of their houses. Even when I pushed my foot down on the accelerator the car didn’t budge. Until I remembered I hadn’t let the handbrake off. When it finally did move, it chugged and bumped across the car park. A couple of women coming out of one of the flats glanced my way. But they were used to Junior’s car doing wheelies in the car park. They looked away almost at once.
So far, so good. I was moving. Now all I had to do was make it to the retail park.
I took the lonely back road to avoid traffic lights and junctions. Something told me I was meant to change gear at some point, but since my lessons with Junior had
never got that far, I didn’t bother. I made it there anyway. I chugged into the retail park and saw the Hell Cats gathered together under a street light. They turned and stared when they heard the car. They were like rabbits caught in the headlights as they watched it heading straight for them.
I saw their surprise turn to alarm as I careered towards them. I was going faster. How was I supposed to stop this thing? My mind was a total blank.
‘Get out of the way!’ I waved my arms about frantically. They didn’t need to be told twice. They separated and ran off in different directions. I was heading for a brick wall. If I didn’t do something quick, it would be concertina time for me and the car. Finally, I got my head together, slammed on the brakes and pulled at the handbrake at the same time. With a screech and a roar, I came to a halt.
They all came running after me.
I rolled down the window and grinned. ‘I think that was an emergency stop!’
Wizzie threw back her head and laughed. And I knew I had done it, because suddenly, they were all laughing. Even Grace.
‘I didn’t think there was anybody behind the wheel! I
couldn’t see you. The invisible driver.’ Wizzie laughed.
‘Where did you get the car?’ Lauren asked.
‘A friend,’ I said casually.
‘This is brilliant,’ Sonya said, and she didn’t even stutter.
I was so pleased they were pleased I accidentally let the handbrake off and almost rolled into a brick wall again. ‘Get in quick!’ I shouted. ‘I can’t stop this thing properly.’
Grace hauled open the back door. ‘Can you drive?’
‘Well, I can’t stop it, I can’t steer it and I can’t change gears. But otherwise, Michael Schumacher eat your heart out.’
Lauren clambered in the back beside Grace. ‘Where are we goin’?’
‘Pick a place. As long as it doesn’t have any turns in the road, we might survive.’
Sonya squeezed in beside Grace and Lauren. ‘No, honestly, whose c-car is it?’
‘Professional secret,’ I said.
Wizzie threw herself into the front seat beside me. ‘You stole a car! Bold bitch!’
I didn’t tell her any different. I liked how she said that – ‘bold bitch’.
‘Let’s go for a spin,’ I said.
Getting the car into reverse was my first problem. It didn’t help that they were all shouting advice at me.
‘It’s something to do with that stick thing.’
‘I think you have to press one of those buttons.’
‘Have we got to get out and push this blinkin’ thing?’
In the end that was exactly what they had to do. The four of them leaning on the bonnet and turning me round. But once we were out of that car park, I was on a roll. The retail park was on the edge of town and the street it was on led to a lonely coast road.
‘Aren’t you supposed to have the lights on?’ Lauren suggested, and for the first time I realised that I had been driving along the road in a dark car.
I switched on the radio, the windscreen wipers and the hazard lights before I finally remembered where the right switch was, and the road ahead blazed with light.
‘Ah, this is so much better. I can see where I’m going now.’
Lauren let out a sudden screech. ‘Ah! What’s that?’ She pointed to something squashed flat on the road ahead of us.
‘Looks like a hedgehog,’ Wizzie said, peering closer.
‘Is it dead?’ Lauren was almost out the window, looking at it.
‘Well, it’s certainly not sunbathing, Lauren,’ I told her, and suddenly, we were all laughing.
I couldn’t remember when I had laughed so much. We screamed as we wheelspinned round corners, we made up stories on the dark roads to frighten ourselves, and turned up Junior’s CD to full blast, singing at the top of our voices.
I think at some point I even managed to get the car into second gear.
It seemed ages later when I dropped them all off at the retail park again. But it was less than an hour. We were still laughing.
‘We really should do this more often,’ Wizzie said. ‘Who says we’ll steal a bus the next time?’
They all stood waving at me as I drove off, and it was only as I parked Junior’s car (perhaps a little too close to the BMW beside it) that it occurred to me that, by the time I’d left them, I’d felt as if we’d been friends for ever. They were my mates.
I think we’d bonded.
I swaggered into school next day and was folded into the group of them as they stood in the corridor. ‘Crashed any good cars lately?’ Lauren asked.
‘I nearly did. Twice after I left you. And then I forgot to put the handbrake on. The car rolled away and I think it might have put a dent in Mrs Miller’s BMW.’ It was an exaggeration, a little lie, but I didn’t care. Then I shrugged. ‘But everybody knows Junior’s a rotten driver. He’ll get the blame. He’ll probably think it was him as well. He’s got a memory like a sieve.’
‘Is that Junior Bonnar you’re talking about? Was it his car?’ Wizzie asked.
‘Yeah, do you know him?’
‘He went to school with my brother.’
‘Was that the young offenders’ institute?’ Lauren laughed.
‘No, it was not.’ Wizzie sounded annoyed and Lauren
immediately changed the subject. But I knew what school she was talking about. Junior had only ever gone to one school. A special needs school in the town. I could see Wizzie was sorry she’d mentioned it, so I said nothing.
Then we walked the yard, arm in arm, and it was exciting to see the looks on everyone’s faces. Hannah Driscoll, now best mates with her arch enemies, all in just a few days.
Erin just couldn’t handle it. She confronted me in the changing rooms for PE. Her face was like thunder.
‘Slumming it a bit, aren’t you?’
‘Actually, I think I’m moving up in the world,’ I snapped right back to her. I wasn’t angry, or apologetic. I was funny, the way I used to be. Why couldn’t I have been like this last week, during all those weeks when they had made my life such a misery?
I could see Erin didn’t like the change in me. Good. She tossed her strawberry blonde hair and pouted her lips. Once I would have thought she looked cool. Now, she just looked stupid.
Just then Heather and Rose came into the changing rooms, looking for Erin. They surrounded me. ‘Oh, look who it is – the girl who’s found new levels to sink to.’
They were trying to humiliate me, the three of them, standing round me, blocking me in. Trying to make me afraid. Just a week ago they would have managed it. Now they just made me laugh. They looked so stupid, standing there trying to act tough. They suddenly looked to me like silly little girls playing games. Was that the way we had always looked to Wizzie and the rest? Now that I was seeing them from the other point of view, they weren’t scary at all. They were a joke.
Heather shoved me, expecting me to shove back, or maybe to be scared. I didn’t even stumble. I only laughed. That shook her. ‘What’s so funny?’ she said.
‘You. You’re just so pathetic, Heather.’
Rose punched my arm. ‘What’s happened to you?’
Erin pulled her away. ‘Don’t even ask her. Leave her be, Rose. She’s not worth bothering about.’
‘Scared, are you?’ I asked, and Erin turned on me. There was red-hot anger in her eyes.
‘At least we wouldn’t have fought you all at once, like your new mates did.’
‘I took them one at a time, square go, and I’ve discovered you can trust them to give you a square go.’