Brave New Girl (4 page)

“You and Luke?”

Sasha flushed. “No! Anyway, it's none of your business.” She turned away. It was like her face had
one of those noisy metal shutters and it had just clanged down.

“Oh. Right. Sorry, Sash.” I took a deep breath. “Are you busy, maybe? Tomorrow?”

Sasha looked at me. “Why?”

I had my reasons and everything rehearsed, and now I'd been reading Keith's stupid notebook all my thoughts had dribbled out of my head into thin air. “Tomorrow morning! Not too early, don't worry! It's a surprise. A surprise, that's it!”

“Well, keep your hair on, Seren. Maybe. I'll see.” I knew that was a yes. Sasha turned back to the cupboard. “Have you seen my blue top? You haven't gone and borrowed it, have you?”

I had seen it. It was her favourite and she looked great in it. But I hadn't borrowed it. Not the way she meant, anyway.

“No.” I flicked through Keith's notebook. “You know I can't wear your clothes.” I gave her a wounded kind of look. Even though Sasha was older than me she was tiny and curvy and I was tall and straight-up-and-down. “Maybe it's in the wash,” I said.

I really was getting better at lying. But she'd need to wear it tomorrow.

Sasha did a big, dramatic sigh and I felt a tiny bit
guilty. But it was for a good cause. I looked at the clock. I was so excited I would spill if I wasn't careful. This time tomorrow Sasha would be walking on air, and she'd have me to thank.

I woke up thinking about Keith's shop. It was the biggest shop on the estate, bigger than the betting shop next door, with three aisles crammed with all sorts of stuff. If you wanted anything else (and Keith's shop did sell everything), you'd have to go to the brand-new, all-night express supermarket. They were building it on the road that would – once it had opened – lead on to the Olympic park. I'd told Keith's mum loads that even when it did open they should be all right, because no Tesco I'd ever seen sold crispy pork, or White Rabbit Chinese sweets.

I looked at the clock on the dressing table. It was only nine o'clock and my stomach was turning over and over like one of those gymnasts with sticky-out bunches that wins gold medals.

In her bed across the room, Sasha was still asleep. She made a whiffly noise and turned over as if she could hear me thinking, which, I told myself, was rubbish.

This will work, I said out loud but very quietly. Sasha would be thrilled, Fay would be awestruck and she would tell Christina and maybe things would change at school. Me and Keith might even get to be cool. Fingers crossed.

Under the pillow, my phone alarm went off on vibrate. I turned it off and flicked through my inbox. The last text I'd had was from Keith, yesterday morning. I scrolled down my contacts and before I let myself get really depressed at the shortness of the list I turned it off and sat up. I wasn't going to do that any more. I was someone new. My brother was singing at the Olympics, Sasha was about to have the best Leaving Prom ever, and Keith and me were going to make a brilliant film. Life was good.

Before I woke Sasha up, I put her blue top back in her drawer and made her and Mum a cup of tea.

The boys were watching cartoons, Denny had the remote and Arthur was whining, “Den-ny! Denny! I want to watch the o-ther siiiide…”

“Can't. I'm in charge.” Denny waved the remote just out of Arthur's reach.

“Denny!” Arthur squealed, and jumped up and down, his face red with anger. “It's not fair! Denny, you are a slug-brain! A poo-head.” Arthur turned his voice up to loud. “A MR STUPID POO-HEAD SLUG-BRAIN!”

Denny shouted back. “I'm gonna be the one
on
the telly and in the papers. People are gonna see me all over the world. You'll never get on the telly because you're a troll. A tiny troll-face boy. You'd only be on one of them shows,
The Troll-Face Boy of Hackney…”

Arthur crumpled. “That's not true! Seren! Tell him that's not true!” Arthur looked at me, bottom lip stuck out a mile and wobbling like jelly.

“Denny!” I said.

Denny just sat there grinning, holding the remote. “Troll boy.”

Arthur started punching him, and when that didn't work, lay back on the sofa and kicked him, his legs spiralling in the air like a toddler having a tantrum.

Denny just smiled, which made Arthur worse.

“Arthur. Stop it!” I pulled him away. His face was red and blotchy. “It's Mum's day off. Don't make her come down, not yet.”

“I hate him!” Arthur said. “He said I was a troll!”

“Well, you are…” Denny said.

I took a deep breath. “No, Arthur. You are not a troll. Denny, apologise. Now! Or I'll take the remote upstairs with me.”

“You're not the mum, you know,” Denny said, scowling. “You're not even my sister, you're only my half-sister...”

For a second I didn't say anything. The words stung like a slap round the face.

“Denny!” I was shocked, and Denny realised what he'd said and went pale. Arthur smiled and said, “Ummm-mm” in that sing-song, little-kid way.

“Sorry, Seren,” Denny said quickly, without being asked. “I am, Seren, really. I never meant…” He couldn't look me in the face.

“OK, done now,” I said, and it came out flat and unwobbly, even though I thought I might be sick. “Say sorry to Arthur too, while you're at it.”

“Sorry Arthur.”

I was still moving in slow motion. Of course I was only his half-sister, that wasn't exactly breaking news. I told myself I was totally lucky it had taken him ten years to think of it.

I went into the kitchen and picked up the teacups.
We were not a family like you see on the telly. OK, maybe in one of the soaps where they're all complete nutters. Me and Sash have different dads and different last names. She's Sasha Campbell Brown, Brown for her dad who died before I was born. And me, I'm Seren Campbell Ali for my dad who runs the restaurant – Mum said it was true love for about a week. She also said he's a kind man, a too-soft-for-his-own-good man, and that's where I get it from, whatever ‘it' is. The boys have the same dad, and I can remember him and the rows, so the boys are both just Campbell.

So we're all half-sisters and brothers. But like Mum says, we're not half a family, never just half a family. She won't have the word half in our house. She says it's the worst word in the world and we're not half of anything. We're whole, she says.

That's why it was such a shock. Denny had never thrown that at me. Not in all his ten years. Ever.

I took two cups of tea upstairs. Mum's door was propped open and she was sitting up in bed. I could see she was halfway through her brick of a book. I put the tea down on her bedside table.

“Thanks, love.” She looked at me, and patted the bed next to her. So I put Sasha's tea down and slid into Mum's bed.

She put the book down, spread flat so as not to lose her place. “Are things OK?”

“Yeah,” I said. “‘Course.” I put my head down on her shoulder, shut my eyes and breathed her in.

When Mum first started work driving the buses, I had this stupid idea that she would come home smelling of buses and not of Mum. You know that smell? That sort of sun-through-scratched-windows-and-old-chips-and-fizzy-drink kind of smell. She never did, obviously.

“Are you still checking I don't smell of bus?” she said.

I smiled.

“Everything's all right, isn't it?” Mum said. She smoothed the hair away from my forehead with her hand. “Oh, I wouldn't be your age again for any money,” she said. “Thirteen!” There was a sort of sad laugh in her voice, like she was remembering.

I shut my eyes. It was lovely lying there, listening to her voice.

“You know you're really lucky, you are,” Mum went on. “A gang of good friends, I mean, Christina's
almost like another sister to you...”

I moved away and sat up. I didn't want to think about it and most of all I didn't want Mum worrying about something that had happened ages ago and was most definitely old news....

“It's all cool, Mum.” I smiled and picked up Sasha's tea. “S'brilliant about Denny, isn't it?”

“Seren?” she said, and her voice sounded a little bit too sad for my liking.

“Mum, really. It's all good. Better than good. I'm making a film with Keith…”

“Keith? That's great!”

“I'm fine,” I said, and smiled wide to prove it. Then I scurried out and was across the landing and back in our room before she could say anything else.

“Sasha. Sash!” I nudged my sister awake. “You promised.”

“Promised what?” she mumbled.

“To get up, remember? I said it was a surprise. And look, remember that top you were on about? Well, clever Seren found it for you.”

Sasha hugged me.

We got to the shop just in time. As we rounded the
corner I got a text from Keith. The
Paradise
has mirror glass windows so you can't see in.

L HERE, read the text. BUT OTHRS WTH HIM.

I put my arm through Sasha's.

“Is this the surprise?” she said, taking her sunglasses off.

“No, I just need something…”

Sasha's phone rang. I knew it was Fay because Sasha's got a special ringtone for her, that number one by the American girl singer, the one with the voice that does all those wobbly bits. Loud. Very loud. Sasha unhooked herself from me and answered.

“Gotta get this, Ser.” Sasha had saved up for one of those new phones with touch screens and everything, and she loves it almost as much as she loves Luke Beckford.

Sasha was soon having an even louder conversation with Fay, while staring at herself in the mirror glass of the supermarket. I had to go in, and she had to come with me. I walked to the shop entrance. I could see Keith at the till, pointing round the corner to the cereal aisle. I really didn't want Sasha doing the girly phone thing in front of all those boys. Not cool.

I snuck in and saw Jamie Kendrick, who is six-foot-something and the school goalie, towering over
the top of the aisle. He hadn't seen me. I could hear them chatting and laughing.

My mind was racing. It was going to be hard to get Luke to notice Sasha when he was with his mates. I listened. It sounded like four of them at least, and he was there, that was his voice, teasing someone about an easy goal.

I ran back outside. Sasha was twirling a ringlet of dark brown hair, watching herself in the mirror.

“Yes, Sasha,” I said. “You are beautiful but will you come inside.” And I did mean it. She was lovely, my sister, honey-brown skin, dark-brown hair that might just be black. Why couldn't Luke see how lucky he would be to have a girlfriend like her?

Sasha cupped her hand over the phone. “Can't I wait out here?”

“No! Finish your call! Please!”

“Seren, what is up with you?” She spoke to Fay again. “Excuse me, but my baby sister is giving me so much grief.”