By Any Other Name (7 page)

‘Thanks.’

‘No problem.’ That smile again.

He’s the perfect distraction to stop me from brooding over Dan, but he’s not going to have it all his way. He might be uber-cute, but I’m not going to throw myself at him.

Yes, screw you, Dan. You don’t know what happened to me and you wasted about five minutes before getting it together with Little Miss Vapid
.

I’m not going to let Fraser know the effect he’s having. He has to earn me. Tasha’s older sister sat us down when we were twelve and told us the harder a boy works to get a
girl, the more he appreciates the victory. Her advice has never let either of us down. Lea could never understand why she struggled to keep boys interested for longer than a few weeks when we
didn’t have any trouble at all. We tried to tell her, but she always turned herself into a doormat straight away. She just couldn’t seem to act any other way around a boy she liked.

I guess I didn’t do too well with Dan though. I can’t believe he forgot me so quickly. I can’t believe they all did. It hurts. Even with the distraction of the hottest boy
I’ve seen in Dumpshill Comp sitting right next to me and flashing me a quick smile as he looks up from his maths book.

On my other side, Emo Boy has his head down, leaning it on his hand, as he scribbles furiously. Doesn’t he ever speak to anyone?

‘So, do you know people here?’ Fraser says after he checks I’m ready to turn the page over.

‘No. We lived down in the Midlands and we’ve only been here a few days.’

He smiles. ‘Come to the canteen with us at break. I’ll introduce you around.’

So this break-time I’m sitting in the canteen surrounded by a way cooler bunch of people than Holly was with yesterday. The Holly of yesterday tells me to be careful. I tell her to shut
up. This is
my
future now. I have to have something to make up for everything I’ve lost.

‘S
o how was today?’ Mum passes me the carrots to grate. Katie holds the grater steady. She likes this job.

‘Better.’ I run the first carrot up and down the rough grating side. Katie sticks her tongue between her teeth in concentration and hangs on to the grater handle. ‘I met some
people.’

‘That’s nice. Just be careful not to give too much away.’

I nod while I grate energetically. ‘I’m meeting some of them on the playing fields later,’ I say casually.

She isn’t fooled. Her head flies up and the baking potatoes she’s scrubbing are abandoned. ‘That’s not like you.’ She looks me straight in the eye and I squirm.
She’s right of course. Tasha and I despised the girls who hung around in the park. That kind of thing was for girls who wore too much fake tan and false eyelashes heavy enough to start a
tsunami in the Pacific if they blinked. We went out and did things; we didn’t hang around on park benches hoping we’d be noticed by some saddo with a souped-up Corsa.

‘No.’ I keep grating the carrots. ‘But I don’t know how people do things around here so . . .’ She purses her lips and I shrug. ‘I have to try to fit in,
Mum.’

‘Maybe not like that though?’

‘You don’t know what it’s like here with no friends.’

She shakes her head at me and turns back to the potatoes. ‘Of course I do!’

I’m ashamed then of snapping at her. She gave up her life too. So did Dad. Why is it so easy to forget what they had to sacrifice? Is it because I’m a selfish bitch at heart?
That’s not who I want to be.

I finish the carrots and take the potatoes off her, telling her I’ll make dinner now. Maybe she wants to do her yoga DVD or something.

She nods. ‘That’s a really good idea. I think I need to destress. But
Holly
’ – and she emphasises my name – ‘you need to be careful. You know
that.’

I have a flash of anger again.
Yes, I know that. I know. The thing is, Mum, with the ghosts of Tasha and Co. haunting me, and Dan’s abandonment fresh and stinging, I don’t really
care.

I search my wardrobe for something warm to wear because it’s cold outside. A frost is forming – I can see the car windscreens starting to sparkle from my bedroom
window. I’m feeling a bit ashamed of grouching at Mum over her advice to be cautious. I can’t blame her. When we went into witness protection, they made it clear to us that we had to be
so, so careful.

I remember that first day in the hotel room, when I got out of hospital and the police took me to Mum and Dad. The moment the hotel door opened and I was ushered in, Mum ran full pelt across the
room and flung her arms round me – carefully in case I was still in pain or dizzy, but she bear-hugged me all the same. Dad was only a second behind her, and Katie danced round us all
shouting ‘Boo-Boo! Boo-Boo!’ at the top of her voice. As soon as I saw them, I started to cry and I couldn’t stop. Dad asked if we could be alone for a while and so they left us
for half an hour.

‘What happened to you?’ I asked when I could stop crying and Mum finally let go of me.

Dad was sitting beside me, holding my hand. ‘Once we agreed to go along with what the police suggested, we had to get out straight away. Mum brought Katie to the hotel and they sent me to
pack some essentials. We’re going to sell the house now, but it’ll take a while so we’ll have to rent until it does sell.’

Selling? So it was permanent then. We were never going back home.

I started to cry again.

We weren’t left alone for long though. When they came back, they told me about how a hairdresser would call round tomorrow. I told them no and I wasn’t changing my hair. They got
cross then until Mum suggested a temporary colour just until we moved and they accepted that. They told me how Katie was getting to keep her name because nobody could get her to understand
otherwise. How all the ID needed was being prepared. And most of all, never, never to talk about it. Never to give anything away. That I was Holly now, everywhere. Even at home. Even in the privacy
of the family. Lou was gone forever.

They even talked us through an outline of a cover story we might use: Dad quits his job as troubleshooter for a nationwide company to go solo as an accountant, downsizing our house until he gets
his business off the ground; Mum looks after Katie. Well, at least that was true. Mum had been doing freelance editing too, but they said she’d have to stop that as her name was too well
known.

I meet the group from school on the village playing fields at half seven. It’s dark but the pavilion is lit up. I can see Gemma and Lucy, two of the girls who were with Fraser in maths,
sitting inside and I walk over, unexpected flutters of nerves in my tummy. They see me and wave. ‘Hi, Holly!’ The boy sitting beside them turns. It’s not Fraser but one of his
friends – Stuart. He’s holding Lucy’s hand.

There’s noise coming from further up the field, but it’s too dark to see what’s going on. Girls are laughing and squealing over the racket of engines revving and spluttering.
There’s the occasional flash of a headlight.

Lucy laughs as an especially shrill squeal floats towards us. ‘I just bet that’s my little sister.’

I go in and sit beside Gemma under a security light that’s wrapped in a mesh cage. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Some of the boys brought quad bikes up and they’re giving rides at the top of the field. I think they’re having some kind of competition to see who can make the girls scream
the most. Want to go see?’ Gemma grins. I don’t ask her if Fraser’s up there. ‘Leave Lucy and Stuart to eat each other’s faces, which they’re dying to
do.’

Lucy giggles and slaps at her, but it’s more grateful than annoyed so I get up and follow.

It’s inky dark outside the pavilion and the ground is uneven under our feet. Gemma grabs my arm as she stumbles.

‘Ow!’ she yells, then puts two fingers in her mouth and gives a sharp whistle.

‘Oh my God, how do you do that? You have to teach me.’

She laughs. ‘My brother taught me. He says I was the slowest ever to learn. Ah, here he is.’

An engine vrooms towards us and I’m blinded by the lights until it pulls up, so I can’t see the rider in the darkness. ‘Want a lift, lazybones?’ he asks.

‘Yes, but can you fit Holly on too?’

I’m being appraised in the headlights, I know it.

‘Sure.’

I can hear his smile. I passed the test. Gemma shoves and wiggles me around until I’m somehow wedged on the bike between her and her brother. It’s good one of us knows how to get on
this thing in the dark because I don’t have a clue. Gemma introduces me and her brother gives an approving grunt. Obviously ‘Hi’ is beyond him. We zoom off up the field and my
teeth rattle – this thing is a total boneshaker.

When we get to the top of the field, we hop off. Or rather Gemma hops off. My effort is more an inelegant topple to the side.

Someone’s lit a small fire in a pit in the grass and the flames flicker on the faces of the people standing around. I scan quickly for Fraser, but he’s not in sight. A couple of the
boys look vaguely familiar from school. They’re in my year, but I don’t know their names.

A girl with strawberry-blonde hair makes her way over to Gemma.

‘Oh my freakin’ God! That just scared the living crap out of me. I thought we were going to crash for sure.’ She’s got a mid-Atlantic twang, which sounds odd out
here.

Gemma laughs. ‘Hi, Cam. Holly, this is Camilla, but everyone calls her Cam.’

I say hi politely and Camilla looks me up and down. In much the same way, actually, as Mum would have looked over those girls from the Health and Social Care class and come to the conclusion
that they weren’t the right sort. I bristle immediately. This has never happened to me before.

‘So what are you into, besides getting nearly dead on quad bikes?’ Cam asks, though I’m not sure she really wants to know.

‘Music, mostly. And I used to play a lot of tennis and hockey.’

It could be my accent that reassures her, or what I said, or she’s noted the lack of yokelness in what I’m wearing. She smiles condescendingly and Gemma relaxes. I guess she’s
relieved Camilla has approved me and she’s not made a gaffe by turning up with me.

I want to be open-mouthed at the sheer bad-American-high-school-movieness of this. Camilla’s Queen Bee, that much is obvious. I guess from her accent that she’s lived in the US
recently – maybe that gives her some kind of exotic appeal out here.

‘So you’re at Gemma’s school?’

‘Yes, just started. You’re not?’

I get the condescending smile. ‘No, no.’ And then with a little laugh, ‘I’m at the Roundle School.’

I’ve heard of it. Good facilities, but not up to much academically. Really nothing for her to turn her nose up at me about. Oh no, I forgot – I’m at Dumpshill Comp now. Well
then, she might have a point.

Were Tasha and I this bad at talking to newbies? I don’t think so and I certainly hope not.

Five quad bikes roar past and head to the bank of trees on the other side of the fire. The screams from the girls intensify and I roll my eyes at their idea of entertainment – being driven
round a field by a conversationless lump who thinks making them scream turns him into a man. So, so sophisticated.

Gemma’s brother comes up. ‘Want a ride?’ He doesn’t address the question to anyone in particular, but Camilla assumes it’s to her. Why does that not surprise
me?

She giggles and simpers and flicks her hair. I think I want to be sick.

‘Do you think you can make me scream louder than last time?’

‘Get on and find out.’

Wow, he’s so . . . no, I’m not sure how to describe him. Bovine? Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s pretty as he doesn’t seem to be packing many brain cells in that
skull. But Camilla giggles as if he’s a stand-up comic and she grabs his hand. ‘Come on then. Let’s see what you’ve got.’

I breathe a sigh of relief when she trots off with him.

‘Cam’s dad owns Saltcombe Park,’ Gemma says pointedly.

I shrug.

‘The hotel complex with the golf course and spa. It’s a couple of miles down the lane towards Trencham.’

So she’s loaded. That explains why she’s Queen Bee. ‘What’s the story with her accent?’

‘Her dad ran chains of hotels or something in the US and then decided to move back here. She’s so lucky – she lived in LA for a couple of years.’

Gemma’s tone of awe is vomit-inducing and I’m disinterested already. LA – yeah, yeah. Tasha’s been there on holiday and she said it’s way overhyped.

I can’t remember when I’ve been as bored as I am now. Listening to people race round a field on an overgrown buggy. And Gemma’s prattling on about wedding dresses now. Is there
some reason for this that I missed or is she one of those girls obsessed with getting married as soon as possible? Whatever, it’s completely yawnworthy.

‘So you know what I think would be totes cool?’

Totes cool? Not saying that would be a good start.

‘Like, a big white wedding dress with a silk puffball skirt that finishes just at my ankles . . . and . . . you ready for this . . . white Nike trainers. Yeah?’

I’m speechless.

‘But you know you always have to wear heels at your wedding? Well, I thought what about
platform
Nike trainers with a wedge heel? That would be amazing. With maybe some white
fishnets.’