Under My Skin (12 page)

Sally dipped her head. ‘Thank you.'

‘You should always be blonde, but please get here on time in future.'

‘Sorry.'

‘No time for that – chop chop! Get into starting position. Go!'

The song ‘Little Shop of Horrors' was a short piece – only about a minute to get through, but it dawned on Sally that she was essentially opening the show.
WWMSD? What Would Molly Sue Do? In fact, why couldn't Chiffon be Molly Sue?
That sort of worked now she thought about it. The music started and Sally decided to go for it. She knew the words, she knew how she was
supposed
to act (she'd YouTubed
The Supremes
at Mr Robert's request), all she had to do now was get the hyperactive butterflies in her stomach to settle the hell down.

The three of them waited in the wings for the guy playing the narrator to get his American accent right. Crystal was being played by Holly Harman, a lovely girl who should have also probably been Audrey based on her talent, but was at least a size sixteen so that was never going to happen. Keira, playing Ronette, gave Sally a warm smile that caught her off guard. ‘Let's just be super fun and girly, OK?'

Sally was taken aback. ‘Yeah, sure. I'll . . . follow you.'

‘Cool,' Keira said to both Sally and Holly. ‘We should be like sisters.' Keira seemed to have made her normally bouffant afro even huger as a tribute to Diana Ross.

A new voice interrupted. Melody. She was already wearing a tacky blonde wig and a sling over her arm for Audrey's first scene. ‘Nice hair, Sally.'

Sally waited for the bitchy follow-up, but it didn't come. ‘Oh. Thanks.'

‘Looks really good.' The words were nice, but her eyes were deader than a shark's. Perhaps Melody's facial muscles just couldn't stretch to a smile.

Unlike Todd, Sally had no desire to make small talk with Melody and Molly Sue didn't prompt her to. ‘Just ignore her,' she said.

‘Don't listen to Mels. I never do,' Keira said, echoing Molly Sue's sentiment once Melody had crossed to the other side of the stage.

‘What?'

‘Oh, she's such a brat,' Keira said with her trademark smile. ‘She had leukaemia when she was, like, three so her parents totally ruined her. She's a lost cause.' Hearing Melody's best friend talk about her behind her back was an eye-opener. Sally assumed everyone at SVHS worshipped her.

‘I thought she was your best friend.'

‘Oh, she is. If it wasn't for Mel's little dramas I wouldn't have a single thing to talk about!' Sally laughed with her. ‘But contrary to popular belief I'm not her minion. After we leave here, I'll never see her again if I can help it. One year of this hellhole left and then I'm gone!'

Whaaaaaaaat?
One third of Melanora hated school as much as Sally did? Mind officially blown. The day just got more and more interesting with every passing minute. Molly Sue was wrong – the makeover hadn't just changed her hair . . . everything was different.

For the next couple of weeks, Sally became Sally's obsession and Molly Sue was always on hand to help. Sally had to admit, it was kinda fun; working out how to make her old clothes look good; thinking of ways to style her new hair; experimenting with make-up. Molly Sue had truly taken her on as a project and one day of attention wasn't enough – it was addictive.

Sally had maths four times a week so that was four opportunities to talk to Todd. After a few lessons, she got the most positive sign yet. HE PASSED HER A NOTE. How many times had she yearned for someone to include her in a private joke, and when she was, it was Todd who reached out to her! This particular note read,
Check out Pollock's trousers. He has a piss stain.
Oh bless, the poor guy did have a little wet patch in his crotch. Sally turned around and rolled her eyes at Todd. ‘He probably splashed when he washed his hands,' she whispered.

‘I'm telling you . . . the guy needs an incontinence pad.'

She laughed aloud, drawing a death glare from the teacher. Sally didn't care.

‘Keep it up, girl,' Molly Sue commented. ‘You're way more fun than ol' Fingers-For-Dessert Vine. Just be patient.'

The only raincloud in the sky was Stan. He was being decidedly frosty with her. She'd been over a couple of times for brand new
Satanville
but he seemed sullen and unnecessarily harsh on the episodes (‘Season four is the
worst
. I don't know why we're even bothering any more.'). It just didn't make sense.

Things reached boiling point at the New Quarter mall one Saturday. Even though the weather was getting hotter and hotter and most of the year was up at the lake, Sally, Stan and Jennie had gone shopping. They liked to hang out in the coffee shop and order tank-sized mugs of coffee the way the
Satanville
gang did. They huddled around Jennie's laptop, exploiting the free wifi.

‘What shall we do now?' Sally asked, fingers sticky with cinnamon bun icing. ‘You don't have to go home yet, do you?'

‘Don't you want to hang with your new friends?' Stan asked pointedly. ‘They'll be up at the lake no doubt.'

‘Stan!' Jennie chided.

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Sally asked crossly.

Stan shrugged. ‘Now that you're Miss Popularity you can hang out with your new bestie, Keira.'

Sally saw red. The fact she chatted to Keira at rehearsals and that people now acknowledged her existence at school didn't make them her
new friends
. ‘Well, maybe if you don't stop whining like a giant man-baby, I will!'

‘Wow,' Molly Sue said quietly. ‘Couldn'ta said it better myself.'

Stan flinched like she'd punched him in the face.

‘I'm sorry, Stan,' Sally went on, ‘but ever since I got that haircut you've been acting like I'm a alien clone shape-shifting bodysnatcher or something.'

‘It's true.' Jennie came down on her side. ‘You've had a face like a smacked bum all week.'

‘Gee, thanks, guys. I so needed ganging up on.'

‘We're not!' Sally said. ‘OK, we are, but what's the problem, Mopey Moperson? Look, if I've done something to annoy you, just tell me so I can fix it.'

Stan squirmed, scraping the foam out of his coffee mug with a wooden stirrer. It looked like he regretted saying anything in the first place. ‘I just hate that you're leaving us to go off and be one of the shiny people.'

Sally narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that what you think I'm doing? Do you really think I'm that shallow? If you do . . . then that makes you just as shallow.'

‘What?' Now it was Stan's turn to look cross.

‘Oh, I don't know!' Sally threw her hands up, exasperated. ‘But that's not what's happening. Stan, I just fancied a haircut.' Sally sighed. ‘Is there something wrong with me wanting to look nice? Is there some secret rule? That you get two choices – ugly and deep, or pretty and shallow? That blows.'

Stan seemed to warm a fraction. ‘OK, I'm sorry. I know I'm a sulker, I can't help it.' He looked at her with wide, honest eyes and it was difficult to be mad at him. ‘You know, I don't know about you, but I pretty much hate school with all my heart. If it weren't for you guys, I don't know if I could, like, get through a single day. I just don't want stuff to change.'

‘It has to,' Jennie said sadly. ‘We're all leaving next year . . .'

‘Don't even talk about that!' Sally sipped her coffee. She didn't really like coffee, it remained so bitter even after three sachets of sugar, but they never drank tea on
Satanville
. ‘We'll always be best friends. Wherever we go next year . . . or whatever my hair looks like!' She wondered if maybe she had gone too far, too fast with her makeover. She really didn't want to change who she was just because of Todd – she knew enough to know that wasn't cool. ‘Come on, let's go look at things we can't afford.'

Stan bought some comics from the
SFF Emporium, where Sally wondered if a Dante action figure was a step too far, before Jennie decided she'd like to get some new clothes for her birthday party. Her parents were going to Korea to see her family in a few weeks but Jennie was allowed to remain for
Little Shop of Horrors
and had been granted a house party in their absence. For her OCD parents, this was a big deal.

Clothes shopping with Jennie was quite painful. It usually involved her seeing something in one shop (always the first), being indecisive and then trailing them around another six shops before deciding she did want the original item after all.

They set her a time limit of an hour and started in the first shop – one of those preppy places that was too dark, too loud and smelled like a gym changing room. Sally sat with Stan on the leather sofas outside the fitting room while Jennie tried a skirt and some tops on. ‘Sorry I was such a douche,' Stan said. ‘You know what I'm like once I get an idea in my head.'

Sally fiddled with her
Satanville
bracelets. ‘No. It's OK. It's my fault too. I did the whole surprise reveal thing at school. I should have told you and Jennie first – but I just wanted an honest reaction.'

Stan looked sheepish. ‘And my reaction was douchey.'

‘Perhaps a little.'

Stan tucked his feet under his legs to sit cross-legged. ‘What I should have said is: Sally, you look freaking aaaaamaaaaazing.'

Sally's heart floated up her chest like it was full of helium. ‘Really?' Her voice came out quiet and girlish, barely audible under the pounding house music.

‘Really. Although, you know you were beautiful before the haircut, right?'

‘Oh, cringe!' Sally grimaced.

‘You need to learn to take a compliment, Blindy McNoeyes.'

Sally was about to enter a full-on embarrassment spasm at the way this conversation was heading, so abruptly changed the subject. ‘No, what I need is to get out of this shop. Are you melting?'

‘I am in danger of turning to a pool of goo, yeah.'

Sally rose from the sofa, her legs sticking to the leather. ‘I'll go hurry her along. She won't buy any of it, anyway.' Sally ducked past the sour-faced shop assistant, whom she recognised from Year Thirteen, and entered the changing rooms. It was just as dark in here – presumably to fool you into thinking the clothes looked nice. The area divided up into booths with saloon doors and a large communal area in the middle. ‘Jen?' Sally stooped down to find Jen's feet.

‘I'm here,' Jennie replied. ‘I'll just be a minute . . .'

‘Me and Stan are boiling, can we wait outside?' Thinking nothing of it, Sally barged into Jennie's booth, the way they always did. They'd shared changing rooms for ever, it was no biggy.

This time, Jennie seemed to mind, however. ‘Wait, you don't need to —'

Too late, Sally was already through the doors. ‘Why? Is the skirt hideous or . . .' Sally tailed off, seeing what the problem was. Jennie stood in her polka-dot bra, arms folded across her chest, but she couldn't hide the vicious bruises on her upper arms. They were vivid purple patches with yellowish outlines and they were the exact shape of handprints, as if someone had squeezed her arms way too tightly. ‘How on earth did you . . . ?' Sally's words hung in the air again, because there was only one way she'd got those marks. Kyle.

Jennie tried to brush it off with a hollow laugh. ‘Oh God, they're nothing. They don't even hurt.'

Sally felt Molly Sue stir in her, like a shark surfacing. ‘That son of a bitch,' Molly snarled.

‘Did Kyle do it?' Next to Molly Sue's, Sally's own voice sounded stupidly small.

‘No! God, no! No, nothing like that. It must have happened while we were making out. You know what I'm like, I bruise like a peach!' Jennie was panicking, Sally could tell. She looked so, so guilty – which was so stupid, Sally could have cried. Tears pinched behind her nose.

‘That bastard's lucky I can't get a shotgun in this pansy-ass country o' yours.' Molly Sue was pacing around her back; Sally could feel her getting hotter and hotter.

‘Jennie.' Sally's voice wobbled but she closed the doors so they were protected by the booth. ‘What happened? Please tell me . . . you can tell me anything. I won't tell anyone, I promise.'

‘I already said! It's nothing!' Jennie snapped. ‘Look, I'm standing here in a bra. Will you just let me get dressed, please? Thank you!' She pushed Sally out of the cubicle. Sally was speechless.

Dazed, she shuffled back to where Stan was waiting, leafing through one of his comics. ‘Is she ready?'

‘She'll be a minute.'

‘Are you OK? You look awful.'

She couldn't tell Stan. She just couldn't. He'd blow up and try to be all manly, which would almost certainly result in Stan's ass getting squarely kicked in by an entire garage band. ‘I . . . I just feel so hot. Can we wait outside?'

‘Sure.' He led the way towards the exit.

‘You're not gonna let that piece o' white trash get away with this, are ya?' Molly Sue raged.

No
, Sally thought.
No, I'm not.