Perry found Tracey in the car park. She was incandescent with fury, her amber eyes sparking fire, her halo of auburn hair almost standing on end.
“How come that fat fool gets the star role?” she said, launching her attack before he could open his mouth. “I’m the one with the looks. I’m the one with the talent. What’s she? A nobody. A nothing.”
Perry tried to put a conciliatory arm round her. “What are you so hacked off about?” he said. “It’s not like it’s Broadway or anything? It’s only the stupid school play. What does it matter?”
Tracey shook him off. “It matters to me,” she seethed. “And easy for you to say, Mr Wizard of Oz. You’ve got a part. What am I left with? Understudy to the ugliest girl in town.”
“That’s not fair, Tracey, she’s not ugly – she’s just – plain. And a little overweight.”
“Overweight? The great white whale is thinner.”
Perry sighed and changed the subject. When Tracey got like this there was no point in arguing. It just made her worse.
“Would it make you feel better if I turned my part down?” he said. “I will, you know. Just say the word.”
“Oh shut up,” said Tracey, bitterly, and then accusing. “You’re only trying to get round me because it’s all your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Your fault. If you hadn’t started clapping...”
“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else. Face it, Tracey, she was great.”
“She was NOT great?” spluttered Tracey. “She couldn’t have been great. She’s never been able to hold a tune. And suddenly she can sing like Whitney Houston? Come on.” She narrowed her almond eyes. “There’s something not right about this” she said. “Something weird.”
“Like what?”
“Like – I don’t know. Like she was miming or something.”
“Miming,” Perry threw back his blonde head and hooted with laughter. “Come on, Tracey. Get real.”
“Don’t laugh at me. Don’t you DARE laugh at me. There’s something not right about this and I’m going to find out what.”
“You’re getting paranoid, Tracey.”
“Paranoid? Paranoid? If you think I’m paranoid, if you’re so fond of Lori, Superstar, Morrison, maybe you’d better take her out this evening, rather than me?”
And she flounced off in fury, cancelling their Saturday night date.
Back in the warm womb of Lori’s bedroom, a sunbeam, creeping through curtains drawn against the heat of the afternoon, fell across the brass bed-knob, highlighting the dreamcatcher, silvering the cat-gut strands in a celestial spotlight. Deep in the centre of the charm, floating like a foetus in amniotic fluid, the demon stirred in the timeless space of eternity and smiled languidly to itself.
It had begun. It was all going according to plan. The only fly in the ointment was Coyote. Always Coyote. Always interfering. Or trying to.
Why was he such a killjoy? Why was he always trying to spoil the fun?
It really must do something about Coyote.
“And stay out.”
Pushing through the crowd, trying to get to Lori, Miguel Coyote had come face to face with the janitor again. The big man had fixed him in an arm-lock and frog-marched him unceremoniously from the building. Miguel could have got out of it, no problem, he was a black belt in karate, but the last thing he needed was to get into trouble at this juncture. His powers were limited. He couldn’t afford to make waves until he’d warned the girl and recovered the dreamcatcher.
The janitor heaved Miguel onto the asphalt, wincing as the whiplash hit his already aching back and sent his temper into overdrive.
“When I say you don’t come in, you don’t come in, savvy?” he said, wiping his hands on his dungarees. “Now get outta here before I call the law.”
Lori emerged from the basketball court surrounded by a gaggle of well-wishers, the majority of whom had either ignored or simply failed to notice her before today. Now they were all over her like a bad rash. Suddenly she was flavour of the week.
“Nice going, Lori.”
“That’s some voice you got there.”
“Need someone to carry that bag?”
“Gotta lift home, Lori?”
Lori was on cloud nine. For the first time in her life she was the centre of attention. She wasn’t sure where ‘the voice’ had come, although she had her suspicions, but any small niggles of doubt about the fairness of it were over-ridden by the euphoria of the moment. If this was what fame tasted like, then Lori could do with a lot more of it.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a red bandanna and her heart jumped into her mouth. It was the biker, elbowing his way through the throng, trying to reach her. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not now. Probably not ever. Somehow she had the feeling that he was here to spoil her fun.
It was Mr Quentin who came to her rescue, taking her by the elbow, walking with her across the tarmac towards the school gates while the crowd melted away in twos and threes, in various directions, in a welter of ‘congratulations’ and ‘see-you-laters’. All except for the boy with the leather waistcoat and the long dark hair, who stood patiently waiting for them to pass.
“Well Lori, I must admit, I never thought you had it in you,” confessed the Music teacher. “And aren’t you a naughty girl, hiding your light under a bushel all these years?”
Lori said nothing. What was there to say? As they drew abreast of the biker, she retreated behind Mr Quentin, studiously ignoring the newcomer.
Suddenly, the teacher’s yorkie, which was tucked under his other arm, launched itself at the stranger in the kind of frenzied attack that only a very small, very spoiled dog can get away with, yipping and snarling and baring its tiny teeth.
Coyote didn’t move. He simply looked, staring the animal down with his pale blues eyes. Eyes cold as ice on a frozen pond. And the dog subsided as quickly as it had erupted, burrowing its head into its master’s armpit, whimpering piteously and shaking all over.
“Why whatever’s the matter, Baskerville?” said Mr Quentin, noticing Coyote for the first time. “Did the nasty man frighten you?”
Baskerville made a snuffling noise and Mr Quentin rounded on Coyote.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What’re you doing on school property?”
Coyote nodded towards Lori.
“I need to talk to her.”
“Oh?” Mr Quentin’s eyebrows rose towards a hairline heavily lacquered to artfully conceal his encroaching baldness. “Do you know this person, Lori?”
Lori gripped Mr Quentin’s arm a mite tighter. She should have been delighted that a boy as handsome as this was paying her any attention. With his broad shoulders and his sun-bleached jeans, he was the stuff that romantic dreams were made of. But she had enough sense to know that he couldn’t be attracted by her. Not her. Not plain-Jane Lori. So what did he want? She suspected it was the dreamcatcher. Her lucky charm. And why would he want that? And how did he even know she had it? Whatever, those eyes of his, staring at her as though he could see right through her, made her feel very very uncomfortable. More than anything she just wished he’d go away.
“I’ve never seen him in my life before, Sir,” she said, blushing in spite of herself at the lie.
“Then you don’t wish to speak to him?”
Lori shook her head. “No.”
“Right. You have your answer young man,” said Mr Quentin. “Sanders!!”
The janitor came lumbering round the corner of the school building like a bull moose carrying a broom.
“Yessir?”
“We seem to have a gatecrasher on the premises. You’re responsible for security. Escort him off, would you?”
The janitor tucked the broom into the crook of his arm like a knight’s lance and started to lurch towards them, his face reddening with anger as he gathered speed.
“I already told him twice,” he panted. “Seems some people just can’t take a hint.”
Miguel Coyote conceded defeat – at least for the moment. With a final accusatory glance in Lori’s direction, he turned and loped away. Loped. It seemed a strange word to use for human movement. But that’s exactly how he ran. Smoothly, elegantly, like a wolf. He covered the ground to the school gates effortlessly and with ease so that by the time the janitor, who looked like a carthorse in comparison, reached the street, he had mounted his motorbike, started the engine and was already half-way down the road.
And Lori had heaved a huge sigh of relief.