Sugar and Spice (19 page)

“Not like that,” I mumbled.

“So how are you going to do it, then?”

“I don’t know! I’ll…save up my pocket money, or something.”

“Huh!”

“I will. I promise! I’ll get you something.”

“Not sure I want anything now.”

“Oh, please!” I sprang after her, as she turned and began to walk away. “Shay, please!” I tugged at her sleeve. “I’ll get you something really nice, something you’ll really like. I’ll get you the CD, the one you want —”

“It’ll be too late by then. I’ll have got it for myself, thank you very much. And
I
won’t bother saving up for it! Or do you mean —” She suddenly whipped round, to face me. “Do you mean you’re going to go and get it for me right now, after all?”

I felt myself start to shake. It would’ve been so much easier to say yes! To go back into the shop and slip the CD into my pocket and have Shay happy with me again.

“
Well?
”

“I can’t!” My voice came out in a self-pitying bleat. Shay’s face darkened.

“So what you said was just a load of rubbish, about really, really,
really
wanting to get me something.”

“It wasn’t! It wasn’t rubbish!” I felt a flicker of anger, somewhere deep inside me. “I do really, really
want to get you something, but not like this!”

“Like
what
?”

“Stealing. I don’t care what you say! It’s wrong to steal and I don’t think you should to be doing it!”

“Why not, if I enjoy it?”

“Cos it’s
beneath
you,” I said.

She stopped. “What d’you mean, it’s beneath me?”

“It’s beneath you! It’s a mindless blob sort of thing to do!” I hadn’t known this was what I was going to say, but as soon as I’d said it I knew that it was right. “Mindless blobs go out and steal cos they can’t think of anything else to do. You’re not a mindless blob! You’re oceans better than they are.”

“That’s what you think,” muttered Shay.

“It’s what I know. You can do anything you want! You don’t need to go out and nick things. It’s
unworthy,
” I said.

“Wow! That’s telling it like it is,” said Shay. She was trying to make a joke of it, but I could see that I’d got through to her.

“I wish you wouldn’t do it any more,” I begged.

I trembled a bit as I said it, cos Shay could be quite a frightening sort of person. I really hated the thought of her being cross with me, maybe even stalking off and
leaving me on my own, not wanting to be friends any more. But I knew I couldn’t back down, not even if I was shaking like a leaf.

I think Shay was quite surprised; I don’t think she’d ever imagined that I’d stand up to her. She looked at me for a moment through half-closed eyes, like she was trying to decide whether to be cold and cutting or just walk off; then suddenly she gave another of her cackles and said, “All right, then! Just for you.”

I said, “F-for me?”

“Just for you…I’ll stop doing it!”

I said, “You will?” I was stunned. I felt like I’d won the lottery! “You really mean it?”

“Watch my lips…what did I say?
Just-for-you.
I wouldn’t stop doing it for anyone else, but I’m sick of you nagging at me!”

I said, “I wasn’t nagging!”

“Course you were. Nag, nag, nag. Ooh, it’s naughty! Ooh, it’s stealing! And I still haven’t got my CD.”

“I’ll get it for you, I’ll save up for it!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Shay waved a hand. “Don’t bother. I don’t really want it. I was just, like, testing you. Trying to see if you’d do it. It’s probably just as well you didn’t, you’d be bound to get caught.”

“Yes, I would. I’d be shaking like a jelly.”

“Dunno what I’m gonna do for kicks in future, mind you. Have to take up finger painting or something.”

Greatly daring, I said, “You could always learn how to use a vacuum cleaner and tidy your room up.”

“See what I mean?” said Shay. “Nag, nag, nag! I pity your husband if you ever get married…you’ll drive him bonkers!”

For the first time, as we went back on the bus together, I felt that Shay and me were real proper friends, like I’d been with Millie.

We were giggling together and sharing jokes, and I knew it was because I’d found the courage to stand up to her. The girl who’d spoken to me that time in the shopping mall had said that Shay would “make me do things.” I’d told her that I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do and I hadn’t! So I was quite proud of myself and felt that Shay respected me.

When we got off the bus she said, “Let’s go and get some junk food for tea.” I knew she was only getting junk food to annoy her mum, but I didn’t say anything as I thought I’d probably said enough already. She’d promised to stop nicking stuff and that was the most important.

We went to a little corner shop that had one of those notices on the door: ONLY TWO SCHOOL CHILDREN AT A TIME. Shay said, “That’s cos they steal things.”

“Only if they’re mindless blobs,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” said Shay.

We were in the shop, trying to decide what to buy, when I noticed that the old woman behind the counter was watching us. It made me uncomfortable, though I don’t know why, since we weren’t doing anything we shouldn’t have been.

“How about this?” Shay picked up a packet of Starbursts. “And crisps! We gotta have crisps.”

She was just reaching out for a bag of prawn cocktail when the old woman came over to us and snapped, “What are you two up to?” She must have had a
really
suspicious nature.

“Nothing,” said Shay.

“Don’t give me that! I saw you, trying to filch those crisps. I’m just about sick of you kids! You in particular.” She snatched the bag from Shay and slapped it back on the shelf. “You’ve been in here before, haven’t you?”

“So what if I have?” said Shay.

“I’ll give you ‘what if I have’, my girl! And I’ll have those back, as well!” She wrenched the Starbursts out of Shay’s hand. “Nasty thieving brats, the pair of you!”

“Excuse me,” I said. I was just so furious! What right had this horrible old woman to accuse us of stealing her rotten junky food? “We were going to
pay
for those!”

“Pull the other one,” said the old woman. She gave me a shove. “And get out of my shop! You show your faces in here again and I’ll have the law on you.”

I screamed, “But we haven’t
done
anything!”

It was Shay who grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away. I was really surprised that she hadn’t answered back; I was the one practically beside myself with indignation.

“She hasn’t any right to treat us like that! You can’t go round accusing people of stealing when they haven’t done anything. There’s laws against doing that!”

I went on about it all the way back to Shay’s place. It was so unfair – and especially to Shay. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t more angry about it.

“I’d be
fuming,
” I said.

“You
are
fuming,” said Shay. “You’re fuming enough for both of us.” And then, in this very calm, laid-back sort of voice, she said that when she was really angry – “I mean really,
really
” – she didn’t waste her energy shouting and banging around.

“I go away quietly and I plan things,” she said. “That’s what I’m gonna do now…I’m gonna go away all quietly and I’m gonna plan things. You’ll see!”