“You sure you’re OK with this, love?” Mum said to me. Then she shouted after the boys. “Be good for your sister. If you muck around I’ll know!”
But they had already jumped off the bus and Denny had started running hell-for-leather down the road.
“Seren!” Arthur said, holding out his hand for mine. “We’re late.”
“I’m coming.”
“You are a star, you know that,” Mum said. “I know you’ve been a bit... well....” Mum sighed and I could tell she was trying to find the right words. It’s funny, that. She reads so many books, you’d think she’d have all the words in the world.
I was taking the boys to Denny’s rehearsal. Mum didn’t want Denny travelling on his own so I had packed Arthur’s robot colouring book and my ICT homework. We were late already.
Mum went on. “Only I’ve been a bit worried. Something’s up with you and Sash, isn’t it? You can tell me, you know...” Mum had to say it loud over the chug-chugging sound of the bus’s engine. I nodded and smiled and turned my face away quickly. I didn’t want any fuss, especially not here. I could see Denny disappearing towards The Round Chapel where his rehearsal had started five minutes ago.
Arthur pulled on my arm. “Come on, Seren!”
The old dears, Mrs Gold included, smiled, but some of the younger passengers had scowls: the boys with plastic shinpads and football boots on the way to the astroturf, the woman with the shopping trolley, the man with the newspaper and the tattoos. Their scowls were getting bigger by the second. They would be late for the rest of their lives cos my mum had decided now was a good time for a chat.
“I better go,” I said. “S’fine. Honest.” I smiled again, bigger, sunnier. I didn’t want to worry her. “I’ll get the tea on. Fishcakes, everyone likes them.” I let Arthur pull me off the bus.
“Love you! Love you all!” Mum shouted back at me as the doors folded closed, and I felt myself going red as everyone stared.
I held Arthur’s hand tight, and as I walked away down the road I wondered how much Mum had noticed. Even with the latest and most grippingly page-turning Jenny Darling, she would have to be mad not to have realised that Sasha was hardly ever around at home, and how it was between me and her when she was.
You could hear the singing from outside the Chapel. It was round, of course, and old brick, and there were what looked like even older trees planted in front of the building, big and dark and waving their brand-new spring leaves in the wind. Denny had run ahead and I saw him turn and wave at me before he went in.
By the time me and Arthur caught up we could see into the hall. The choir were doing warm-ups, hundreds of Year Sixes going ooo-oooh and aa-ahhh all together. It made me smile. Me and Arthur scurried up the little steps to the gallery that ran round the top of the big hall. There were a few parents and younger kids. Some were running around in between the seats, their mums shushing them uselessly. Down in the hall the Olympic Junior Choir stopped their warm-ups and went quiet.
“We’re going to start off with a song you all know.” A man with a straggly beard and funny shoes was standing on a box in front of the kids. “It’s Love is Like a Magic Penny....” The Year Sixes groaned. It was the cheesiest song ever. A really stupid, cutesy, corny, happy song.
I remembered singing all the time at primary school. Me and Christina both down at the front. We loved singing. Harvest Festival, Diwali, Christmas.
The music teacher would tell us to smile while we sang, so we looked like number one idiots, and I’d be looking back at the parents watching. Sometimes you’d see them crying. Not falling-over sobbing, nothing like that, just the odd tear escaping, or their eyes shining.
I was doing it now, the adult thing I mean. I was standing there, listening, and it felt as if so much of my life was over. I felt as if everything had gone, all that happiness so long ago. I felt like I’d lost so much. Christina, of course, but Sasha, too.
I wiped my eye with the corner of my sleeve.
The song finished and I looked round for Arthur. My insides flipped. He had vanished. There was his school bag and his robot colouring book, but no Arthur. I strode around the gallery, looking under the benches and now I wasn’t crying, I was angry.
I couldn’t shout because they’d hear me downstairs. “Arthur! Arthur!” I hissed.
“Are you all right, love?” one of the mums said.
“Um, no, I’ve lost my little brother. This tall, brown curly hair.”
The woman shook her head. Downstairs the choir had started up London World in a City.
I imagined going home and telling Mum I’d lost Arthur. I imagined a whole future in which Arthur was lost and it was all my fault. I imagined never again being able to hear anything to do with the Olympics without thinking of my long-lost little brother. I thought I’d start getting tearful all over again. I took a deep breath and told myself not to be so stupid.
“Arthur!” I hissed again. I went to the steps and ran down to the front door. Outside it was sunny and the new leaves blew about in the trees. The main road was thick with traffic. What if he’d been knocked down by a car? Stuck under a bus like something out of Casualty?
“Arthur!” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Arthur!”
He wouldn’t be that stupid, would he? If he had been knocked over I reckoned there’d be blue lights, a helicopter ambulance coming in to land on the playground, a crowd standing around at least. There was nothing like that.
I went back into the Round Chapel and up the stairs. Still no sign of him. I took deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. One last look before I called the cops. I scanned the gallery one more time. Nothing. I took out my phone.
Down in the chapel Denny was singing away, unaware that his only brother was gone. I started dialling.
Luckily, I saw Arthur just before I pressed the last nine. There he was, down with the choir, singing his heart out.
“Arthur!” I said, and the whole choir stopped and looked up at me. Straggly-beard man looked daggers. I said sorry over and over again.
I ran downstairs and dragged Arthur back up to the gallery. “What did you go and do that for?”
“It’s not fair!” Arthur said. “Why can’t I sing too?”
“Your time will come, Art, believe!”
“Want to sing now!” He was really whining. “Why can’t I sing at the Olympics?”
“I don’t know what’s up with you, Art, you’re never this naughty!”
“I am not naughty!” He stared at me defiantly. “And you’re not my mum!” For a second I thought he was going to do that half-sister thing that Denny had done. But he didn’t. It was hard to get him interested in anything in his robot activity book after that.
The bus home was a nightmare. Mum wasn’t driving and the boys fought. Other passengers looked at me like I was some deliquent school-girl mother rather than a harassed older sister.
“Denny, your singing is cack-o-rama,” Arthur said.
“Don’t say that!” Denny snapped back.
“Cackorama, cackorama, cackorama, cackorama, cackorama... did you know cack is spanish for sh–”
“Arthur!” I hissed. “No swearing!”
“I know something!” Arthur said to me in the loudest stage-whisper ever. “I know who Denny likes.” Arthur was smiling, his curls framing his face like a naughty cherub.
“Oh yes?” I said. My little brother had a crush? I thought I ought to know.
“Shut up!” Denny’s voice was threatening.
Arthur squirmed and giggled.
“Ally- Ally- i-cia…” he sang.
“Shut up!” Denny was suddenly bright red in the face.
“Denny loves Alicia Welsh!” Arthur shouted, and Denny leant across and gave him a chinese burn before I could stop him. Arthur started wailing.
“Denny!” I said, too late.
“You’re a baby, Art, you know that,” Denny said smugly.
“Am not!” Arthur said, totally baby-like.
“I had my picture in the Gazette and I’ll be on the telly all over the world!”
Arthur looked crushed. His little face said ‘loser’ louder than any words.
“Art, Arthur!” I said. “What about this?” I took the newspaper out of my pocket. “If you entered this, I bet you’d win.” I had my fingers crossed.
Arthur looked mildly interested. “Do you win a trip to Disneyland?” he said.
I didn’t know. “You get your picture in the paper.”
Denny looked across and snorted. “Kutest Kiddie? Arthur would never win.”
“Would so!”
“Would not!”
“Would so!”
“WOULD NOT!”
“Boys! Please!” I stared at them with my Vulcan Death glare. Denny looked at me and curled his lip, and I realised he was totally immune to my scariest face. Outside, the bus had reached the edge of the estate.
“If either of you play up again,” I said, in a tone that I hoped was low and deadly, “we are getting off here and walking!”
A whole load of boys got on at the next stop. I felt my insides turn over. One of them was ten-foot-tall Jamie Kendrick. I didn’t know any of the others’ names but I recognised them all from school, from Sasha’s year. The way my afternoon, no, the way my entire life was going, I would put money on Luke Beckford being with them and this journey turning into a massive ‘humiliate Seren’ fest. I crossed my fingers. I crossed my fingers on both hands and willed them to stay standing near the door, and be so completely wound up in talking to each other that they wouldn’t notice me.
What if they did? I took a deep breath. What was the worst that could happen? People laughing at me, saying horrible things? Couldn’t I take it? I’d taken it all day. I felt my skin prickle with heat just at the thought. What if they said something to Denny? Or Arthur?
There were only two more stops now.
I opened Arthur’s robot colouring book. “Look at that one!” I said.
Arthur gave me his you are a slug-brain idiot look.
I could feel Jamie Kendrick trying to make his way through the shoppers to the back of the bus where I was sitting with the boys. I knew it without looking up, from the excuse mes and the sorrys and the watch where you’re putting your size 12s!
I stuffed Arthur’s book back in my bag. “We are getting off now!” It came out like a snarl and I must have sounded so fierce even Denny didn’t argue.
I pressed the bell and we slid out of the door and down into the street.
Arthur looked back at the bus as it sped off. “Seren?” he said.
“Hmm?” I was already walking towards home.
“I think that boy, the giant one, is waving at you.”
I didn’t look round.
The house was empty. Mum wouldn’t be back for an hour and who knew where Sasha was.
I made the fishcakes. Well, I took them out of the packet and cooked them. I forced Denny to cut up carrots without using the knife on Arthur, and I made Arthur wash some lettuce, otherwise the boys (and me) would never get close to their five a day.
I realised I was starting to think more Mumlike than my actual mum and after tea I went upstairs and turned on the laptop, hoping that the internet would wash over me and make me think like a thirteen-year-old girl with mates again.
I wasn’t a friend of Christina’s online any more but if I logged in as Sasha I could see her page. I knew it wasn’t healthy, I knew it would just make me more miserable, but I had this big need to roll around in my bad feelings and feel even sorrier for myself than I did already.
I hadn’t meant to look at Sasha’s page. And Keith was sending me a billion messages that made the computer ping like a hyperactive microwave. But I saw it straight away. A picture of me in a heap on the floor of the costume cupboard.
I suppose I ought to thank my lucky stars or maybe my lucky Turkish magic eye that it wasn’t a movie, that you couldn’t see me shaking or hear the snuffling noises it looked like I was making. I looked totally fishfaced, open-mouthed, red, baggy eyes, ridiculous in a mixture of school uniform and silver sparkles. Like a broken, spangly puppet.
I felt my heart speed up so fast I thought it would burst. I clicked the page shut immediately.
The messages were pinging into my inbox so noisily they could have been music.
I decided to call Keith.
The first thing he said was, “So you saw it?”
“Did you?”
“It’s on Christina’s page.”
“Oh no! Hers as well? How come you’re her friend?”
“She likes to keep her numbers up, I guess.”
I clicked the page up again.
“You’re looking at it now, aren’t you?” Keith said. “Don’t be daft!”
“I can’t help it. I look so gross.”
“Forget it, Seren.”
“Forget it?” I was almost yelling. “It’s everywhere!”
“You need to think about something else.” I heard Keith sigh. “This call will cost you way too much. Message me, no, better still, is Sasha there?”
“She’s never here.”
“I’m coming round.”
I kept Sasha’s page up and clicked through to Christina’s. Underneath was a long trail of comments from her and Shaz and Ruby and loads of people I had never even heard of. The comments grew as I watched. Christina had commented first:
This is a scene from Keith’s crap film where Seren breaks down as she realises she has no friends and no talent.
Then Shazna: lol. That girl cannot act. Keith is ttl weirdo!
Then they got harsher. Seren C-A is a fugly freak was one of the nicer ones. I took the magic eye out of my drawer and put it around my neck. I was still reading the comments when Keith appeared.
“Right, turn that off. Now,” he said, and I did.
“Watch this, and feel better.” He clicked over the keys and bought up some of what he’d filmed outside the Olympic park after school. It looked like some science-fiction world of tomorrow and not what had been a building site until what seemed like the day before yesterday.
“Seren? Hello? Lights on and no one’s home.” Keith waved his hand in front of my face..
“I can’t think about anything, Keith,” I said. “It’s all horrible.”
“It’s just a picture, Seren. It’s just you crying. It’s not half as bad as the one of Ed that went up last year. It could have been much worse.”
“Everything could always be worse, Keith. Anyway, it’s not the picture so much. It’s the comments. They say I’m crap, and you’re weird.”
“Who’d’ve guessed? I thought everyone knew that already,” Keith said.
I rolled my eyes.
“I didn’t read them and neither should you. It’s bonkers. It’s like torture, you might as well eat broken glass.”
“I can’t help it. It’s like scratching an itch.”
“Well, don’t!” Keith said.
“I thought all this had finished after last Christmas,” I said.
“Christina’s obviously got nothing better to do,” Keith said. “Come on, Seren, you know what she’s like by now. If you’d have been more... I don’t know, you do make it easy for her, though.”
“How? How do I do that? No, wait, don’t tell me,” I said, turning the lucky eye over and over in my hand. “I made a fool of myself and I ruined the talent show.” I said it quietly.
“Everyone could see she was out to get you! And you didn’t ruin the show, just their dance.” Keith looked at me. “Christina had engineered it so you’d look crap whatever happened. If you hadn’t fallen over she’d probably have pushed you.”
I shut my eyes as I remembered going head over heels in front of the whole lower school. The dress I was wearing, a horrible nylon thing nowhere near as nice as Shazna’s or Christina’s, flipped up and my days-of-the-week-pants were visible to everyone. Everyone.
“No, you’re wrong,” I said. “You weren’t at the rehearsals. She wanted to win.”
Keith facepalmed. “She wanted to win without you in the group. You were a bit like some lost puppy, following them around, waiting to be kicked. You wouldn’t listen, Seren, you know it.” He took a deep breath. “You know that was a low point for me, the rehearsals. I thought you’d stop talking to me then, stop being my mate.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because that’s what she wanted. You know me by now, Seren, I’m not exactly Mr Sociable. I don’t play football, I am entirely uncool, I’m smaller than some of the Year Sevens and my voice probably won’t break until I’m forty-five.”
I looked at him. I did know all this. I couldn’t be Keith’s friend and not know all this already. I also knew that I had been a real coward. Christina had wanted me to choose between staying friends with her or Keith, and when I should have told her how vile that was I just tried to be friends with everyone. It wasn’t until the talent show that things all came to a head.
Keith was right. I wouldn’t take the ten ton ‘push-off-and-leave-us-alone-now’ hints Christina and Shazna kept dropping. Even Sasha had told me to leave it. She’d tried really hard, she said it was blatant that Christina had had enough of me. We’d been mates so long I couldn’t see that it was only because of Sasha and Fay. That Christina had left me behind sometime in the summer holidays after Year Seven, when she did Summer Uni with Shazna while I was helping Dad and Sherifa with the girls.
“They didn’t want you any more, Seren, and you wouldn’t listen,” Keith said.
“I know that!” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t do this film with you, Keith, I’ll just ruin it! I can’t act!”
“Seren, stop it! Now you are being ridiculous. Christina’s just jealous cos you’re in my film. She’ll get bored. Tomorrow there’ll be a photo of a dress she’s seen in some shop, or a boy she fancies in Year Nine, or a kitten making a stupid face!”
I smiled. “So you’re on her page rather a lot, then?”
“Totally. It’s my favourite site. And you know I would never have asked you to be in the film if I didn’t think you were brilliant.” He was on the edge of angry and I felt a bit scared looking at him.
“So you’d have asked her or Shazna if you thought she’d be better for your film?”
“Absolutely. But I didn’t, did I?”
“No.”
“So, no more moaning and no more worrying about what those air-heads think.”
“Sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be sorry.”
“Yeah, but everything is going wrong. Everything. And some of that has got to be my fault.”
“Look, Seren.” He counted off on the fingers of his hand as he spoke. “Those girls are being bitches. You lost a good friend. You tried to help your sister and it went wrong.” He shrugged. “That’s plenty of stuff.”
“I can’t stand it, the way it is with me and Sasha. I mean, even Mum has noticed.” I wanted to say there was more, loads more, but how much moaning can one person take? There was Dad closing down and moving to Cyprus, and me promising Arthur he’d be the Kutest Kiddie in Hackney...
Keith pushed his glasses up his nose. “I bet you never said anything. To your mum.”
“She’s got enough on. Work, you know...”
“Yeah, right, and the latest brick of a book she’s reading!”
“My mum works hard!” I was angry. It was OK me being cross with Mum, but hearing it from someone else...
Keith put his hands up. “Sorry. I’m just saying. You should talk to her.”
I made a huffy noise, but I knew he was right.
“And don’t forget you’re starring in my totally epic production of The Tempest and if you muck that up you’ll lose the only friend you’ve got...”
“Keith, don’t joke about it!”
“You won’t muck up. And haven’t I always been your friend? Even when you and Christina wouldn’t let me in your tent?”
“We were eight.”
“I have a long memory.”
“It was a girls’ tent.”
“Christina told me I would turn into a girl if I went in. She never liked me, even then.”
“I know. I’m sorry. She was horrible to you sometimes.”
“Meh.” Keith shrugged. “You were never that bad.”
“If you were her you wouldn’t speak to me now. You wouldn’t let me be in your film, even.”
“Well, I’m not. And anyway, you’re the best at acting in our whole year,” Keith said. There was a pause. “Would you let me in your tent now?”
“If I had one.”
“That’s OK, then.”
We were both smiling now.
“Thank you, Keith. Show me your film again.”
I thought that if this was a story I would end up falling in love with Keith and riding off into the sunset. But it was never like that with me and Keith, we were just like brother and sister. There were photos of us in the same paddling pool for starters. For seconds I was a good six inches taller than him.
Keith pressed the start arrow. On the screen the sunlight on the water sparkled, and the light seemed alive. The picture on the laptop was more like a moving painting than a film.
“I like this bit,” Keith said.
I nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
“So, you’re up for filming tomorrow? At your dad’s?”
I nodded again. Then I made a face. “But I don’t know about the dress.”
Keith rolled his yes. “It looks really good. I shot some of you earlier. Look.” He fiddled about with the computer. “There.”
It was me posing in the costume cupboard. Because the light was low you couldn’t see much of me, but you could see the dress, the sparkles picking up and throwing back points of light, a bit like the water in the canal film.
“See?” Keith said.
“You’re right.”
“I am always right. Directors are always right. Hitchcock was never wrong.”
“Hitchcock?” I said.
“I thought you liked Strangers on a Train?”
“I did!”
“He was the director. Did Psycho too – the woman in the shower?” Keith made stabby movements with his hand and made that scary music sound. “Psycho?”
“I don’t read the credits,” I said.
Keith pretended to look shocked. “I wonder if there is any hope for you, Seren.”
“I better go.” Keith got up. “Tell you what,” he said, pointing at the blue glass eye round my neck. “Wear the necklace, it’ll keep away the evil eye. It’ll look really good close up. Like something magic.”
After Keith had gone, Mum came home. I warmed up her fishcake and arranged Denny’s carrot sticks. Maybe I could talk to her while she ate. That’s what people were supposed to do, talk at the table, not in buses.
“Put the kettle on, love,” Mum said, and sat down at our tiny kitchen table in her bus-driver waistcoat. She looked knackered.
I flicked on the kettle and brought her a cup of tea. When I took it over to the table she had out the Jenny Darling and was forking up fishcake.
“You always said reading at the table was bad manners.”
“Hmmm?”
“Reading,” I said. “At the table.”
She shut the book. “Sorry. I was at a really good bit. Did the rehearsal go OK?”
I looked at her. Her eyes were tired and her hair could have done with a brush and a really good condition. My mum’s not exactly un-pretty, but the bus-driver outfit never did anyone any favours.
I took a deep breath. I wanted to say, ‘No, it didn’t go well because I nearly lost Arthur, and they’re fighting all the time, and me and Sasha, well, there is no me and Sasha. And who knows what’s happening with her exams. I mean, is she revising or what? Does no one care except me? And then my dad is moving away. This family,’ I wanted to say, ‘is falling apart.’ I opened my mouth and her phone went off. She took it out of her pocket.
“Sasha, love!” Mum said. “You’re not home?”
From the front room I could hear Denny and Arthur squabbling over the Playstation. I went upstairs. I was down about a minute later. I heard Arthur shouting “Se-ren!” instead of “Mum!”, and when I looked, she was sitting in the kitchen lost in Jenny Darling.
When it was bedtime I read Room on the Broom to Arthur for about the millionth time.
“Seren,” he said when I’d finished. “I’m sorry.”
“What about?” I said.
“This afternoon. I shouldn’t have run away and I was loud on the bus. Mum says I should say sorry.” He hugged me. He’d managed to talk to Mum, I thought, why hadn’t I?
“S’all right.” I hugged him back and it felt good. “Good night, Art. Sleep tight. Tomorrow, yeah, you and Den, be nice to each other.”
“It’s hard, Seren.”
“Why?”
“Cos Denny says nasty things. He says we not brothers, he says I came in a box and someone left me on the doorstep.”
I smiled. “Sasha used to say that to me too, about the box on the doorstep. He doesn’t mean it.”
“Did she?” Arthur thought a minute. “Were you?”
“‘Course not,” I said. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just winding you up. This is our family, I mean, you and Den, you’ve even got the same dad.” I bit my lip. “Not that it makes a blind bit of difference.”
“You’re still my sister though, isn’t it?”
“You bet.” I kissed him on the top of his head. “Totally.”
“And Sasha?”
“Yes, too.” I kissed him again.
“Then why isn’t she here any more?”
“Bedtime,” I said. I got up and turned the light off. Even Arthur felt it, even Arthur knew something was wrong.
“Good night, Arthur.”
“Seren, I don’t want to be a Kute Kiddie. Denny says it’s for babies and I’m not a baby, isn’t it?”
I went back to his bunk and sat on the bed again. “No, Art, you’re not a baby.” I felt for his hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I ruffled his hair. “I think you’d win,” I said.
“But if I didn’t it would only be worse,” Arthur said. “Denny would tease me more and he would say it was because I was a troll. I want to sing in the Olympics and Denny says the Olympics aren’t coming back to London for one hundred and fifty years and then I’ll be dead or a head in a bottle that talks like in Futurama, and they still won’t want me to sing....”
I tried not to smile. “You can’t sing in the Olympics, but you can sing along in the crowd.”
Arthur made a huffy noise.
“And you don’t have to do Kutest Kiddie if you don’t want to...”
“I don’t want to. Denny says Cameron and Tyler in my class would beat me up.”
“That’s awful! You can’t let other people stop you doing something if you want to do it! And you are so cute!” I hugged him tight but he pushed me away.
“I don’t want to be cute. I want to be Arthur, King of the Britons, like Mum says.”
“OK, you don’t have to enter the Kute Kiddie thing. But you shouldn’t let what other people think stop you doing anything,” I said. I sounded a bit like one of those American teens who were always right about everything and went around hugging all the time. Maybe I could still do something....
Perhaps I could send a picture of Arthur in secretly.
I stood in the doorway and watched Arthur get comfy under his duvet. A little flutter of excitement bubbled up inside. I’d send in his picture and then he’d win and be so-o grateful, Mum would be thrilled and even Denny would be proud and maybe Sasha would say something nice to me and want to be my sister again.
I sighed. No, it wasn’t worth it. I remembered the last time I tried to do something good. That had rebounded big-time. What if I sent the picture off and then Arthur hated me forever too? How many brothers or sisters could I afford to lose?
Across the landing I could see the light from the computer screen in my bedroom. I pushed open the door and there was Denny lying on my bed. I was ready to have a go at him. “This is my room!”
Denny was cool. “If I was you, I wouldn’t leave the laptop on with you logged in as Sasha.” He wagged his finger at me. “Naughty, naughty.”
My heart sped up. “Is she here?”
“No, but she could’ve been.” He smiled.
“Give me that!”
Denny moved away from the laptop but he stayed sitting on my bed. What had he seen?
“If you tell her I will kill you!” What if Sasha found out? I scrolled through the history. He’d been looking at game sites. Had he seen my picture? Had he read those comments?
“So what you gonna give me to keep quiet, then? Or I could just spill that I know that you know her passwords...”
“Denny!”
“S’got to be worth something!”
“You know, I was going to have a word with you about Arthur, about how he’s so jealous of you, about how he looks up to you so much and you just throw it in his face. He wants to do what you do! He thinks the sun shines out of your...”
“Yeah, well on a good day it does, doesn’t it!”
“Denny! I’m trying to talk to you here! Don’t forget I’m still three years older than you, Den.”
“So? Doesn’t mean you should be using Sasha’s passwords. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be telling Sasha what you’re doing...”
I folded my arms. I remembered the way Denny had gone pink when Arthur mentioned Alicia Welsh.
“OK, Denny, here’s the deal. You don’t tell Sasha about the passwords. I don’t tell Alicia Welsh how much you like her.”
The word Alicia did the trick. Denny blanched and now I was smiling.
I was still smiling when he slunk away out of my bedroom, promising his lips were zipped.
I took a deep breath and clicked back to Christina’s page. Knowing Denny, he’d have left a really stupid message or something. I scrolled down. There was a picture of a kitten pulling a funny face. I scrolled down some more. The picture of me had gone. I couldn’t believe it. I scrolled up and down again. Turned the computer on and off, even unplugged it and booted it up again.
It wasn’t there. I skipped across to Sasha’s. It had gone from her page too. I checked again. What had happened? Keith and his magic computer skills? No, he wasn’t that good. Maybe Christina had had a change of heart? Some people were asking where the picture had gone, but she didn’t seem to be replying.
It really had gone. Completely and totally gone. I pictured Christina in her room feeling bad about the nasty comments. After all, she hadn’t said any of the really nasty things, had she? Maybe she’d had a word with Fay, who’d said something to Sasha, maybe that’s how it was. I wanted to text her, email her to say thank you over and over and maybe forget about Christmas, and even if she didn’t want to be best mates like old times, maybe she’d stopped hating me.
The eye was still round my neck. Perhaps it was doing a really good job of keeping away the evil eye. Perhaps it was magic. I would definitely wear it to school tomorrow, under my shirt so none of the teachers noticed, of course.
I still had Christina’s number in my phone. I wrote three words, THANK U S, then I retyped SEREN in case she thought it was Shazna, and pressed send.