“What’s she doing here?” I say in a voice hoarse with shock. Mohammed and Samir shrink even farther against the wall, and Kim bends down to hold Trudy’s collar.
“You promised,” breathes Samir in a voice brimming with accusation and hurt.
“What?” I say.
“You told, didn’t you?” Samir says, flashing an angry look in Kim’s direction.
I look to Kim.
“It wasn’t me, Alix!” says Kim, and I know it wasn’t.
I swivel around and square up to Lindy. Standing so close to her in that damp hut, I think about her heckling, “Two percent too many!” in class and how she unfurled her spear-nail in Samir’s direction. If she lets loose with that thing now it’ll have to be a Lara Croft moment, with me kicking her hand away while Samir lugs Mohammed out of the hut. Trouble is I haven’t a clue which leg to use.
“What do you want?” I demand, trying to look hard. She’s about my height and her pale face is covered in freckles, her frizzy red hair pulled back tight into a band. She’s wearing a very short denim skirt, a white zip-jacket with a furry hood and floppy suede boots.
She gives me a look as if to say “oh puhleese” and says in a bored voice, “Just hanging out. It’s a free country.”
“Are you meeting Terrence on the beach?” asks Kim in her most worried voice. She’s crouching on the floor beside Trudy looking like she wants to sink through the floorboards.
“Maybe,” says Lindy, and I feel myself tense.
Kim and I exchange looks. She gives me a quick shake of the head, urging me not to wind Lindy up.
So I say in a slightly more friendly voice, trying to sound sort of casual, “How did you know we were here?” But inside I’m already flinching as I see her straighten her fingers out. “Saw you when I was waiting for Liam down at the pillbox.”
“Liam from the carnival?” I ask, and Lindy nods but she’s not looking quite so confident. Liam’s about twenty, with shoulder-length greasy hair and acne scars all over his face. He absolutely never speaks.
“You’re not going out with him!” snorts Kim contemptuously, before she can stop herself, and I see a hurt look flicker across Lindy’s face.
Now who’s doing the winding up? Thanks a lot, Kim. But then I have another thought. If Lindy feels sort of embarrassed, maybe she does have a human side. Let’s hope so, because right now we don’t need any more enemies.
“Who’s he?” says Lindy, pointing the nail at Mohammed.
“My cousin,” says Samir quickly.
“Yeah, right,” says Lindy, and she gives a loud sniff. I feel myself getting all hot and angry. Kim lays a cool hand on my arm as if she can read my mind, and I stay under control. For now anyhow.
Then Lindy says, “So, what’re you doing here?” She throws a contemptuous glance around the hut. How does she manage to make me feel so small? Just like Jess Jayne.
“They’re just camping out,” I say, and it sounds so lame.
Lindy reaches out one booted foot and pokes the end of Mohammed’s sleeping bag. He shifts his legs gingerly.
“Hiding out, more like,” says Lindy with a nasty laugh. I hear Samir suck his breath in sharply.
“On the run, is he?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” It’s Kim, speaking in the voice her clarinet teacher uses when she moans she can’t play something. Kim mimics her beautifully and even Lindy’s face flickers for a second. “Like we said, just camping out.”
Lindy doesn’t say anything but she’s looking all around the hut and then she spots the bags from the chemist.
“Has someone hurt themselves?”
“Don’t say anything,” warns Samir. “You can’t trust her.” But Lindy’s already riffling through the bags, pulling out tape and dressings.
“Must be a big cut. Is it him?” She points to Mohammed’s bruised face. “This stuff’s useless for a black eye.”
“What makes you such an expert?” asks Kim.
“St. John’s Ambulance,” says Lindy.
“You’re kidding?!”
“No,” says Lindy slowly, as if she’s speaking to a complete retard. “I’ve been going for months. I’m going to be a paramedic.”
“In your dreams.” Kim laughs. “They’re hardly going to take someone with a criminal record.”
She means the shoplifting.
Lindy gives Kim a hard stare. I tense, ready to leap at Lindy if she swipes out with that claw, and then she says in a loud voice, “They chuck it out once you’re eighteen.”
The ringtone for Kim’s cell goes off and everyone jumps, even Lindy.
Kim pulls her phone out of her pocket and says, “It’s Mum.”
I nod to her, and we all stay quiet. No point in making the adults suspicious.
She answers it. “Yes. No. With Alix. Do I have to? Okay. Yeah, yeah, I’ll leave right now.”
Kim puts her phone back in her pocket and says, “I have to go, Alix. Mum wants us all to go to the Home and see Gran. She’s not very well again.” She gives my arm a squeeze and I nod reluctantly.
On my own again, I think as I watch her wriggle out of the window, and how am I going to persuade Lindy to keep this secret?
“Don’t tell Terrence anything, Lindy. Will you? We can trust you, right?” I give her a pleading look.
Lindy just examines her nails looking bored.
Samir mutters something to Mohammed in Arabic and then Mohammed unzips his sleeping bag and slowly gets to his feet. Even though he looks a bit less wild now that he’s had a shave, Lindy looks surprised at facing a full-grown man. She takes a step back and trips. Mohammed reaches out and catches her arm.
“Aleex okay,” he says in a low, weak voice. He’s swaying on his feet slightly. “You help Aleex, okay?”
Lindy’s pale face goes red and she snaps, “All right, keep your hair on,” and brushes the hand off her arm. Smoothing down her skirt, she says, “Haven’t seen Terrence for days anyway. Couldn’t care less about him. Hope he’s dead.”
Samir and I exchange looks. We have no choice but to trust her, and maybe if she really knows first aid she can be useful right now.
Samir helps Mohammed to take off his, well, Grandpa’s, sweater and show Lindy the wounds. Lindy doesn’t even flinch, which makes me feel like a right wimp.
“Didn’t you get scissors?” she says scornfully, rummaging about in the bags. “Who gave you this stuff? And no disposable gloves.”
She’s pulling out tubes and packets, heaving a big sigh as if we’re just a bunch of idiots, which, let’s face it, in relation to emergency treatment of war wounds, we are. Where on earth did she learn all this? I’ve never seen her so much as put her hand up in school. I thought she was totally dumb.
“You’ll have to change it tomorrow,” she says. “He’s got pus. It’s all infected.” There’s a dirty piece of gauze in her hand and she grabs a plastic bag. “Here,” she snaps at me. “Hold this open.”
I do what she says.
When she’s finished and Mohammed is getting dressed again, she says, “He needs antibiotics.”
“We know,” I say, watching her carefully.
Mohammed murmurs something as he lowers himself with difficulty back into the sleeping bag.
Samir nods and says, “It’s feeling better, Lindy. Thanks.”
“I’m off then,” says Lindy.
And the weird thing is she doesn’t ask anything more about Mohammed. That feels almost as bad as asking loads of questions. I go outside the hut with her and say, in a quiet voice, “You’ve been brilliant. Remember, just our secret.”
She hesitates for a second and I even think about offering her money.
But then she turns away and walks off through the bushes and trees, back toward the road.
Where is she going now?