‘So what if she did? Serves her right!’
‘We have to live next door to these people, Neil.’
If Ailish took against her… If Flora was ever to warrant, in Ailish’s eyes, the same treatment as Mia’s mum, what lengths might she not go to? And Ailish was sharp. Flora could just imagine her picking up on tiny little things she had said, tiny mistakes, and sitting up into the small hours on Google.
Although, if the Linkwood Adoption Agency hadn’t picked anything up, surely Ailish wouldn’t?
Neil shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean we have to be bosom buddies. God, I hope she bloody well did hear, if it means no more having to socialise with that lot.’
Flora felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. ‘There is that. Although you realise she’d probably defriend us? No more Chipmunk Show?’
Neil stared at her. ‘Christ, Flora, what were you thinking?… Although maybe Caroline will give us continued access to The Show, if she’s not defriended by association.’
But we can’t be friends with Caroline! Flora wanted to shout. I can’t be!
Instead, she gave him a thin smile and went ahead of him into the hall.
As Neil slumbered at her side, Flora lay awake, staring at the strip of yellow streetlight in the gap between the shutters, wanting to get out of bed and draw the curtains across it but somehow not managing to summon the energy.
Every time she tried to stop thinking about Tricia her brain went crazy, whirling random thoughts around so fast that she couldn’t catch hold of any of them long enough for them to be a distraction.
Tricia.
All she could think about was Tricia.
Tricia Fisher, the new girl in the last term of Primary 6. She’d been such an exotic creature, all the way from Toronto in Canada. In the little rural school near Peebles, whose windows looked out on nothing but a field of damp, windblown sheep and the bleak hillside beyond, any new child had been an excitement, but a girl from Canada…!
And Tricia had lived up to all their expectations.
Flora remembered her that first day, standing by Mrs Stewart’s side in front of the blackboard as she was introduced to the class. She’d had long black hair, and skin that was a lovely pale brown colour, and she’d been wearing a dress with a fringe along the bottom. She’d been slim and very graceful, with a smiley face, pretty green eyes and a long nose, which somehow made her look older.
After the class had chanted, ‘Hello Tricia,’ and Tricia had done a funny little wave and said, ‘Hi!’, Kenny Scott had said, ‘Are you a Red Indian?’ and Mrs Stewart had gone mental at him and given them all a lecture about (a) shouting out and (b) shouting out personal questions.
Tricia had smiled and said no, she wasn’t an Indian, ‘I just tan real easy.’
She’d proved to be even more of a rebel than Kenny. This had become obvious that first day. They’d been doing pond life. They’d all had to look down a microscope at a smelly Petri dish with water boatmen and horrible larvae and shrimps in it doing disgusting things like eating each other alive and mating. Mrs Stewart had told them to draw one of the creatures they’d seen, but then she’d caught Tricia doodling on her jotter instead, and when she’d told her to get on with what she was supposed to be drawing, Tricia had said, ‘Bugs! Who wants to know about bugs? Count me out.’
Count me out!
Rachel had thrilled at those words – so casually dismissive – and repeated them to herself in her head over and over. Count me out.
Imagine actually saying that to a teacher!
Mrs Stewart had seemed similarly shocked. For a long moment she hadn’t said anything, just stood over Tricia’s desk, blinking her pale eyelashes and putting a hand up to smooth her already smooth, neatly cropped sandy hair. ‘Tricia, I don’t know how things worked in your school in Canada, but in this school you don’t give teachers cheek. And you do as you’re told.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Tricia had paused in her doodling to smile up at her angelically. ‘In my old school, it was okay for the kids to talk like that, you know? And if we didn’t want to do something yucky, we didn’t have to.’
‘Well, that’s not how things are here. Please take your turn at the microscope and make a drawing of one of the creatures you can see.’
Everyone had wanted Tricia as their friend, but to Rachel’s amazement it had been to her own group that the Canadian girl had gravitated.
Rachel had been standing with Gail and Susie in the porch, sheltering from the rain, although by rights they weren’t allowed in the building at break time – if it was raining, they were supposed to shelter under the trees or the canopy of the annex, or just get wet. But the porch was sort of half inside and half outside, a space about five feet wide between the outer and inner doors of the side entrance. There was no heating in it, but at least it was out of the weather.
Rachel, Gail and Susie had been doing hairstyles – braiding and unbraiding each other’s hair, and adding the multicoloured clips that Rachel had given Susie for her birthday. Gail was good at doing French braids. Rachel had been standing with her eyes closed as Gail’s gentle fingers worked methodically down the back of her head. She loved people playing with her hair. Even the constant traffic through the porch – P7s were allowed inside the lobby during break – hadn’t bothered her. They had been in their own little world.
Until the door to the lobby had crashed open and Tricia had been shoved through it by one of the prefects.
‘Chrissakes! It’s a school hall, not Buckingham Palace!’
Rachel had opened her eyes.
Tricia had made a face at her and grinned, and Rachel had grinned back and said, ‘Yeah, but the P7s think they’re royalty or something.’
It hadn’t really been all that funny. But Tricia had yelled with laughter, and come and stood with them, leaning against the wall and chucking her rucksack down on the floor.
Fifteen minutes later they’d all four of them been standing in the headmistress’s office, trying to explain what they thought was funny about putting their bags in a row in front of the porch door – which for some reason opened outwards – so that people coming in, unless they happened to glance down at their feet, tripped over them.
‘Didn’t you realise how dangerous that was?’ Mrs Campbell had snapped at them.
Gail and Susie had been crying.
It was the first time any of the three of them had ever been in real trouble.
But Rachel had caught Tricia’s eye and copied her insouciant expression. And on the walk of shame back to their classroom, Tricia had jumped up and flicked a hand at the catch on a window, punching it open to the rain, and said: ‘Hey Rache, wanna come back to my place after school tomorrow? My parents don’t get back for maybe two hours. And my brother can’t stop us doing whatever we want.’
‘Oh!’ she had squeaked. ‘That would be… yeah, that would be great!’
Susie had looked at her expectantly but she had turned away, watching Tricia’s fingertips trailing along the wall. Tricia had had elegant fingers with long nails which made a shishing sound against the wall. Rachel later found out that her mum let her have long nails for playing the guitar.
Tricia had walked very slightly in front of the others, the hand trailing in front of them like she was marking an invisible line for them to follow.