The Bad Karma Diaries (11 page)

Consternation in assembly!

Now I know how a criminal feels: you have to
act
all the time. First we had to act really normal and discuss it naturally. We joined our class throng and said, ‘What was that about?’

Caroline Hunter said importantly, ‘It was Jayne O’Keeffe. Someone stuck stickers saying “Racist” on her coat and bag!’

‘And now she’s off school,’ said someone else, ‘she’s in bits!’

‘Well what racist thing did she do?’ I said.

‘Didn’t you hear Lucas?’ said Caroline, ‘she didn’t do
anything
racist. She got unfairly accused.’

‘He didn’t exactly say that,’ said Elaine, ‘he said they were investigating it. I think she was racist to someone in her class.’

‘No,’ said Caroline, ‘someone just wanted to get her into trouble by accusing her of the worst thing possible.’

‘How do
you
know?’ said Elaine rudely. Everyone starting joining in, saying what they thought, so we did too, acting surprised, interested, disbelieving, dumb …

And as a criminal you feel paranoid. I felt everyone was looking at us, thinking:
they
did it. Because of the rumours about Pierce’s homework, we might be suspects. No one said anything, but I was imagining them thinking it, and going to tell the teachers … The only thing on our side was that Jayne
O’Keeffe is not in our year.

But the worst thing about being a criminal is that you have to keep silent! You can’t even discuss it with your accomplice. Everyone is watching you (or so it seems). Even at break me and Anna didn’t dare discuss it. In fact we didn’t dare go off alone. We hung round talking to other people instead. This didn’t make any sense cause we’re always going off alone, but suddenly it seemed that if we did people would say,
look at those two, what are they conspiring about?
And we certainly couldn’t talk to Gita! That would have been like an admission of guilt.

So we had to wait till school was over to talk about it. And then we had to wait till we got off the bus (in case someone overheard) and were walking towards Anna’s house. And then … well we still could hardly discuss it. We didn’t even want to look at each other!

I said, ‘What do you think?’

Anna said, ‘If she was racist, she deserved it, the teachers wouldn’t have done
anything
!’ But she sounded not even half as sure as she usually does.

‘But what if she
wasn’t
? What if Gita was exaggerating?’

‘She wouldn’t …’ And then she trailed off, because the fact is, she
would
. Gita is just exactly the type of person who would exaggerate.

‘Do you think they’ll find out it’s us?’

Anna said nastily, ‘
I’m
trying to think whether we did the right thing. I’m not worried about being found out. It’s bigger
than that!’ She was getting all moralistic.

I said (also nastily, but undercover nasty), ‘It would be better if we hadn’t taken the money.’ That was to get at her, cause she was the most interested in the money. And it’s true: it would be kind of okay if we hadn’t got paid for it. I didn’t like to imagine Lucas’ face if he knew we were paid for it!

‘Let’s ask your mum,’ I said, ‘we can ask in a
general
way, not admitting it was us …’

‘Yeah, ok,’ said Anna. But her mum wasn’t home. There was only Renata in the kitchen, eating yoghurt, and in a foul mood. And there was no point bringing it up with her. Who cared about her weird view on this? I left pretty quickly.

Investigations are still going on in school over whether Jayne was racist or not. Someone said her parents came into school, and so did Gita’s. So now everyone knows there was some incident between Jayne and Gita, and everyone is arguing over whether Jayne was racist or Gita was lying. The story is getting chewed up and mangled, at least in our class. No one knows what happened and everyone is taking sides. I had a lot of discussions about it. I have discovered another thing about being a criminal: you want to talk about the crime all the time.

When I got home I decided I’d ask Justine because it’s her year. Justine might be quiet and boring, but she’s good at
noticing things and she always tells the truth, at least she did as a kid. She couldn’t lie that was her problem, she’d turn bright red and her eyes would start bulging, and pretty soon she learnt just to own up quickly. So I brought up the whole incident at dinner, in a general way of course. I started telling my parents about it and Justine joined in, much more talkative than usual. I mean she was really interested in this.

I said, ‘They’re in your class. What do you think?’

She said, ‘I don’t
think
Jayne was racist … I’d say she said mean stuff, but nothing actually racist. But Gita is new and Jayne is really mean to her. Jayne’s mean to loads of people, but maybe Gita
thinks
it’s because she’s Indian. Or maybe Gita just wanted to get Jayne into trouble so she called her racist. Because everyone knows that’s the worse thing you can say in our school. But anyway, whatever, Jayne deserved it!’

I looked at Justine, quite surprised. She seemed in a bit of a state about this. And she sounded kind of vindictive, which is not like her. ‘How did she deserve it?’

‘Well, okay, maybe she didn’t deserve to be called a racist’ – Justine’s voice gave full weight to the terrible accusation:
racist
, and I went all squirmy with guilt – ‘but she’s a horrible person. She makes people’s lives a misery. So she deserved to see what it was like herself for once.’

I was glad to hear this, I can tell you. So she isn’t actually racist, but she’s a horrible person who deserved to see what it was like herself for once. So we hadn’t been
too
unfair …

Mum said, ‘Well – but where’s the mystery? Surely this Gita is the prime suspect for the stickers then?’

‘Yes, but she wasn’t in school the day the stickers were put up,’ said Justine importantly, ‘so it couldn’t have been her!’

‘Now that
is
suspicious,’ said Dad, ‘suspiciously convenient. She must have put someone up to it.’ He sounded amused. He thought this was funny! He only thinks things are funny about two times a year. He must be pretty smart, though, seeing as he worked out what happened.

‘Yeah!’ I said enthusiastically, cause I didn’t want to look suspicious, ‘that must be it. Bet she paid someone to do her dirty work.’ (This was a very daring and clever thing to say. Diverted suspicion by putting it out in the open!)

‘Well the teachers will be on to her, I guess,’ said Mum ‘they’ll have worked it out.’

‘You think?’ I said. My voice may have squeaked on the
think
. Squeaked with panic. Hope nobody noticed.

Jayne is back in school. We saw her at break in an important huddle in the playground. Her friends were looking very protective and important because they knew everyone was looking. Some people were going out of their way to say hi to Jayne to show they didn’t think she was a racist. But not everyone was. And she was looking a bit small and shrivelled. I
don’t know her but I’ve noticed her round. She’s one of the First Years you notice. Normally she oozes popularity and bitchiness but she wasn’t looking like that now.

‘Justine said probably Jayne never said anything racist, but that anyway she’s a horrible person,’ I said.

Anna said in a snappy voice, ‘You can’t punish someone for one crime just because they’re guilty of another – oh I’ll put you in jail for murder cause I know you’re guilty of theft!’

I snapped back, ‘I didn’t say you
could
. I just meant we didn’t have to feel too sorry for her.’

Then we looked round for Gita. Not to
talk
to her – that would look way suspicious! – but just to see did she look worried. But we couldn’t see her anywhere.

‘Maybe’s
she’s
off now,’ said Anna.

At lunch I went to talk to Brian and Derek and David Leydon. Me and Anna thought we should separate and also we wanted to get away from each other. Well I did from her – because we only wanted to talk about one thing, and we couldn’t talk about that at school, and all our jokes about other things have just gone.

I don’t know whether I can say David Leydon is my friend. We talk, but it’s me talking
at
him. He doesn’t say much. But he doesn’t walk off. Brian doesn’t talk much either but that’s probably because it’s difficult for him to keep up his accent. If he spoke too long a sentence he might start sounding like his mum! The one who talks the most of the three is Derek. I’m
discovering that under his long fringe and scruffy attitude, Derek is actually quite friendly. He’s got these enthusiastic eyes, which somehow remind me of Justine’s when she was small and wanted to join in my games. (Well his eyes are brown, not blue, like hers, and he doesn’t look like a seven-year-old girl, but it’s the same expression, like he’s hoping there’s fun round the corner and that I’ll deliver that fun). I brought up the Racism Case (of course! I couldn’t resist. It’s like a pop-up. You know when you’re on a computer and reminders keep popping up telling you to get more anti-virus or whatever? Well it’s like that, whatever I’m doing or saying, the Racism Case keeps popping up, demanding attention). They didn’t seem that interested though. Derek said, ‘It must have been some kid in First Year. Only some kid would think of stickers.’ – ‘Yeah,’ I said enthusiastically, ‘so dumb!’ and at that moment I agreed completely with him. And then I remembered: but it was me –
us
. We’re dumb!

Damn! This means if this gets out, it will be seriously embarrassing. What we did is dumb, not cool.

At dinner I got back to questioning my main source, Justine. Apparently everyone in her year was questioned! Because Jayne says she never was racist and Gita says she was so racist, so the teachers are asking if anyone can say what happened. Jayne’s friends are backing her up. Gita doesn’t have as many people to back her up, which could be because a) she’s not as popular as Jayne, or b) because Jayne never actually said anything. She also
can’t say what exact racist word Jayne used, she just says that her attitude was racist.

‘What a mess!’ said Mum. ‘They’ll never sort it out. It comes down to one girl’s word against another. Who would you believe?’

‘Neither!’ said Justine, ‘Well, OK, the way they’re behaving? I don’t think Jayne would have dared say anything racist. Everyone knows that could get you expelled. And anyway I don’t think Jayne is actually racist. I think Gita made it up because she knew it was the best way to get Jayne back. And it is! But both parents are
furious
. Jayne’s parents are saying it’s libel and Gita’s parents are saying it’s racism!’

‘Mr Lucas must be very nervous. Parents have gone to court for less,’ said Dad, ‘no wonder he called the assembly. He needs to look like he’s taking this seriously.’

The racist incident seems to be good for us as a family. At least it is making Justine more talkative and that seems to be making my parents happier but my stomach was a tight, hard ball. I couldn’t finish my dinner. I was picking at it bad as Justine. What had we started? Why didn’t we ask Gita for PROOF? What were we thinking of? I blame Anna. She’s supposed to know about proof and evidence and witnesses. Her oldest brother John is studying law, and she always says she’s going to study law too. I’ve never said I’m going to study law. (I have
no
idea what I’m going to study – not ad campaigns anyway! I am never going to design another poster in my life!).

Later

It has occurred to me that it would be suspicious if I did not mention all this on our blog, so here’s what I’ve posted up:

I am quite proud of this entry. It is cryptic and intriguing, and actually it states my (new) thoughts on the subject. I mean – SOMEONE (a.k.a. me and Anna!) has a LOT to learn. Hope we’ve learnt it.

Oh, great – now me and Anna are fighting.

We haven’t learnt anything!

This is the worst week of my life.

Leaving school this afternoon, I just mentioned to her, ‘Derek thinks sticking stickers was dumb.’

She said sarcastically, ‘I must remember to consult him on cool.’

I said, ‘Well, maybe it was babyish.’

Then she lost her temper. I should have seen the signs, I mean her lip was out. She said, ‘Trust you t0o take on someone else’s view. You’ve got no confidence in what you do. You always need to
check
your actions with someone else. And of
course
you would choose a cardboard cut-out definition of cool like Derek to check it with. If you must be such a sheep, try choosing someone with a bit more cop-on to defer to.’

I said, ‘Yeah, well at least I don’t always think I’m right. You think you’re so great you don’t need to ask anyone anything. You think you’re above everyone else and whatever you do is perfect. Well some of your ideas are dumb, and you’d be better off checking them.’

She said, ‘
You
thought of the stickers!’

I said, ‘
Me
? You did?’

She said, ‘You’re pathetic,’ and stomped off.

I have checked back in this diary to the day we thought of the stickers (October 20th). But all I wrote was, ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do to Jayne …’

How useless is that! What is the point of writing a diary if you leave all the crucial details out? But anyway I
know
she
thought of the stickers. Obviously she did! In any case I am fed up with her and her bad moods and her always thinking everyone’s an idiot, and just dismissing people. Well now she has dismissed me. Soon she will have no friends at all.