‘I’m going over the fence at lunchtime,’ said Aiden.
‘You’re doing what?’
‘I want to talk to Xena. Are you coming with me?’
‘You’re nuts, Aiden. Of course I’m not coming with you. Have you forgotten the trouble we got into last time? Get caught again and Mum and Dad’ll kill us.’
‘They won’t kill us.’
‘No, they won’t kill us. They’ll just make us wish they had. It’s crazy, Aiden. Don’t do it.’
‘Hey, that’s fine if you want to stay, Ash. Probably better, really. If I get caught, then it’ll only be me in trouble.’
‘You’re not going.’
‘I am.’
‘What makes you think she’d even be there? Just because she was at that park once at lunchtime, doesn’t mean she’s there every lunchtime. You need to grow up.’
‘Yeah, well. Only one way to find out.’
‘I forbid it.’ I thought about crossing my arms, like Mum does when she’s being particularly fierce, but I wouldn’t have been able to take myself seriously.
‘Good luck with that,’ said Aiden.
‘I’ll tell Mr Meredith.’
‘No, you won’t.’
And he was right. I wouldn’t. I didn’t. Instead I watched as he scaled the fence at lunchtime and disappeared down Albert Street. I couldn’t even stand there peering through the fence and waiting for him to come back, because that would have made someone on yard duty suspicious, so I just strolled around the grounds, trying to be cool but actually churning with worry. Now I wished I had gone with him. It would’ve been better than waiting here, nursing an overactive imagination.
He was gone twenty minutes. I saw him approaching the fence out of the corner of my eye as I was talking to the teacher on yard duty.
‘Ow,’ I said, blinking furiously. ‘I think I’ve got something in my eye, Miss. Could you look, please?’
She tilted my head up and I held open my eyelid as best I could. Apparently she couldn’t find anything, which didn’t come as a great surprise to me. I blinked a couple more times, announced myself cured and thanked her. Aiden strolled past, hands in pockets, whistling. I caught up with him.
‘Well?’ I hissed.
‘Never better, thanks,’ he said. ‘You?’
And it was then I noticed the small cut above his right eye. I pointed it out to him.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘That’s where my head came into contact with a kid’s knuckles. Bit unfortunate.’ He held up his right hand, made a fist. There were scrapes along its back. ‘Which is when these came into contact with his head.’
‘My God, Aiden,’ I said. ‘You’ve been in a fight?’
‘Not a lot gets past you, does it, Ash? What gave you the first clue?’
I grabbed him by the sleeve, pulled him further away from a group of girls huddled together, chatting and laughing.
‘You’ve just recovered from a serious head injury, Aiden,’ I pointed out. ‘And you get into a fight? Are you crazy?’
He laughed. ‘I’m beginning to think so. Settle down, Ash. It’s nothing. You should see the other guy. He’s not looking as pretty as me.’
I sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you recently, Aiden,’ I said. ‘I reckon that injury to your head has addled your brains.’ But he just kept grinning. ‘So was all that worth it?’ I added. ‘Did you see her?’
‘No. But I did see that boy, Ziggy. He dropped out of a tree just like last time.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘That he really should think about varying those dramatic entrances.’
I folded my arms and put my head to one side. That just made Aiden grin even more.
‘I asked if Xena was around. He told me to go away, though those weren’t his exact words. I politely declined. He tried to make me. I stopped him.’ Aiden examined the scrapes on his knuckles. ‘When all of that was done, I asked him to pass on a message to Xena. That message being that I wanted to talk to her and would appreciate it if she turned up tomorrow at approximately four in the afternoon.’
‘And what did Ziggy say?’
‘He didn’t say anything. He spat out a tooth and left.’
The sound of the afternoon song called us to class and we both turned towards the building.
‘She won’t turn up, you know,’ I said.
‘Oh, I think she will,’ said Aiden.
‘Why should she? Because you reckon she’s got the hots for you?’
Aiden laughed.
‘Well, probably. She’s only human. But no, Ash. She’ll turn up because I said I’d pay her to. In solid gold, actually.’
That stopped me in my tracks.
‘You don’t have any gold, Aiden,’ I pointed out.
He turned to face me. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But Mum and Dad do. Loads of it, in jewellery boxes all over the house.’
‘And what? You think they’ll just give some to you?’
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Unlikely. So I’m going to have to steal it.’
I spent the rest of the school day in a mental fog, so much so that Mr Meredith got quite stern with me, which was a first. But I couldn’t get my brother’s words out of my head. He was going to steal from Mum and Dad? That had to be a joke, right? This wasn’t like Aiden at all. A thief? Someone who gets into fights (and for the first time not to protect me)? Mr Meredith asked him how he got the cut over his eye and Aiden said he’d slipped in the playground. He said it without hesitation and with complete sincerity. I was tempted to believe him and I knew it wasn’t true. Could all of this be put down to puberty? I wasn’t going to ask Charlotte and risk another lecture, but I supposed it was possible.
Nonetheless, it made me scared. Not just because I wasn’t sure I liked what Aiden was turning into; I was worried I’d be undergoing that change myself. Maybe it had already started.
I didn’t want to become a liar and a thief. I was pretty sure I’d be rubbish at fighting.
Dad sent the car for us, so I was able to grill Aiden some more on the way home. I decided not to talk about stealing – I’d convinced myself that he was joking about that, trying to wind me up. But one thing he’d said had stuck with me.
‘Why four o’clock, Aiden?’
‘Huh?’
‘You said four o’clock for your meeting with Xena. That’s after school. How could that work?’
‘Oh, yes. Well, it’s pretty simple, Ash. Five or ten minutes isn’t going to be enough from my point of view and that’s all the time I’d get if I did it like today, skipping out just for lunchtime. Four o’clock will give time for a decent conversation.’
‘But we’ll be going home from school then.’
‘You’ll be going home. I’ve got a meeting of the newly formed fencing club at school. You know, the kind of extra-curricular activity that our school is so famous for.’
‘But there isn’t a fencing club, Aiden.’
He laughed and put an arm round my shoulders.
‘Ah. You know that and I know that, Ashleigh. But Dad doesn’t know that, does he?’
‘He’ll find out.’
‘Maybe. But not from me and not from you. And, anyway, so what if he does? What’s he going to do to me, hey? No using my tablet for a week?’ He gave a mock shiver. ‘Oooh, I’m scared.’
I didn’t say anything else on the drive home. I was too scared to talk to my brother in case he told me other things I didn’t want to hear.
Dad swallowed the fencing club story at once. He even praised Aiden for his initiative in starting it (my brother added that little extra detail) and said he’d send the car at five o’clock. Dad also wanted to know whether I would be coming home at the normal time.
‘I think I’ll stay and check everything out,’ I replied. I was careful not to mention the non-existent club because what I’d said wasn’t strictly speaking a lie. I did want to check everything out. I didn’t feel much better about myself, though. I couldn’t ignore the fact that words can tell a literal truth, but still deceive.
‘All good,’ said Dad. ‘And we’ll maybe think about getting you all the right equipment if this is something you’re really keen on. Just let us know.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Aiden. ‘That’s very good of you. As always, generous to a fault.’
Dad gave my brother another strange look when he said that.
Later, in the pool, Aiden dived beneath me and tried to pull my legs down and give me a dunking, but I wasn’t in the mood. So he bobbed at the edge next to me.
‘So you’re coming along to see Xena, Ash,’ he said.
‘Coming along to look after you,’ I replied. ‘The way you’re behaving, you really need a minder, Aiden.’
He laughed. ‘I feel safer already.’
‘You were joking about stealing stuff from Mum and Dad, weren’t you?’
‘Already done it.’ Aiden brushed his wet hair straight back over his head. ‘A ring Mum has never worn, as far as I know, and a solid gold wristwatch of Dad’s that’s also not needed. I’ve stashed them under my bed. You can have a look at them later, if you want.’
‘You can’t just take those things.’
‘Well, I did, sis. It was really easy.’
‘It’s wrong.’
‘Why? Dad’s got a whole collection of watches and he never wears any of them.’
‘Nobody wears watches, because they’re antiques,’ I said. ‘As you know. Dad’s a collector.’
Aiden snorted.
‘He’s a collector? Okay. Right. He collects valuable things to stick in a drawer where no one will see them, not even him. They have no use whatsoever, they cost a fortune and they’re not even decorative. At least the paintings Mum collects can be hung on the wall and admired. Their useless rings and watches won’t even be missed, yet if you sold them they could probably feed a family for years.’
‘Aiden, it doesn’t matter what you say. Stealing is a crime and it’s wrong.’
He hauled himself from the water and sat on the edge, reached back and grabbed a towel.
‘We have more than we know what to do with. Other people are poor and starving to death. No one is hurt by this. For Mum and Dad it’s a drop in the ocean. Probably less than that. For Xena it might mean the difference between life and death. How can that be “wrong”, Ash?’ He made the quotation marks in the air. ‘Explain it to me. Show me exactly how I’ve sinned.’
And maybe I would have tried, but I knew that he would run rings around me with words that sounded fair and right and just, but which were really just bright make-up, covering up the ugliness beneath. I couldn’t do it.
‘Cheer up, sis,’ said Aiden. ‘It’s not the end of the world. Hey, fancy a race? Two laps, freestyle?’ He jumped back in.
I didn’t fancy a race. I wanted to go to my room and cry. But I raced him anyway.
He beat me by three-quarters of a length.