Worse Than Boys (11 page)

‘I haven’t … I didn’t.’

‘So, what was your mother doing here?’

I tried to think of an answer, but my hesitation was answer enough.

‘Have you got to tell your mother everything?’

‘Leave her be,’ Erin said with a sneer that didn’t flatter her. ‘Her mother’s as useless as she is.’

And suddenly, Mrs Tasker was there, pulling me from them. It was as if she’d been sent there to look after me, to save me from them.

‘I want to see all of you immediately after break. In Mr McGinty’s office.’ Then she looked at me. ‘You can come with me, Hannah.’

I could hear them snigger as I walked off, safe with the teacher.

It wasn’t only Erin and the others who were summoned to the head’s office. Wizzie and her mates were there too.

They were all there when I walked in with Mrs Tasker. Every one of them glared at me, blaming me, and I couldn’t argue with that. I would have blamed me too. Blamed my mum.

Everyone else had to stand. Only I was allowed to sit down, beside the teacher. It was humiliating. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Wizzie lean back against the wall. Grace was biting at her nails and Lauren was sighing noisily as if she was bored stiff. Erin was standing as straight as if a board was rammed up her back. There was anger in the way she stood. Anger at me.
Heather was drumming her fingers on the head’s desk, a daring deed for Heather. Mr McGinty brought a ruler sharply down on the desk inches from Heather’s hand. She jumped and Sonya giggled.

‘I believe there was a fight outside the school the other day.’ I must have looked guilty. No one would ever believe now that I wasn’t the one who grassed. ‘Well, the school won’t have it. We won’t put up with these fights any more. We’ve had enough visits from the police to last a lifetime.’ His gaze went directly to Wizzie. ‘People have been hurt.’

Wizzie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Wasn’t us,’ she said.

Mr McGinty roared at her. ‘Don’t you dare talk back to me! A bunch of silly little girls acting like the mafia, causing nothing but trouble. Not caring who they hurt? I don’t understand your mentality.’ He looked directly at Heather. ‘Why are you in a gang, Heather?’

Heather pursed her lips and looked sweet. ‘I’m not in a gang, sir. I just go about with my friends.’

‘And what about you, Wizzie? Why are you in a gang?’

‘I’m not in a gang either. Better ask the Lip Gloss Girls about going into gangs.’

‘Do you get a kick out of everyone doing what you say?’

Wizzie laughed. ‘Nobody ever listens to me, sir.’ She nudged Sonya. ‘That right, Sonya?’

Sonya pretended she hadn’t heard. ‘Did somebody say something there?’

That set them all laughing, but it only made the head even angrier. ‘I can’t understand you. You get yourselves into these stupid gangs and then you can turn on a friend just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. Everyone knew he meant me. If I’d had the nerve I would have crawled out of the room.

‘This is the final warning. I’m going to be watching all of you from now on. And I’m going to be speaking to all of your parents.’

Mrs Tasker held me back until everyone else had left the room. I wondered if she could feel my shoulders shaking under her hand. Now I was really in trouble. Couldn’t they see that? Where was it all going to end? How was it all going to end?

I was ignored by them all until home time. I was desperate to get out of the school gates, away from everything. Though I knew home and my mum were no comfort to me. I expected Erin and the rest to be
waiting for me, but it was Wizzie who was there. She wasn’t even looking at me when she spoke. She spoke in a voice so soft that anyone looking might have thought she hadn’t even noticed I was there. But her words were just like a knife inside me.

‘You’re going to be really sorry for grassing us up, Driscoll. One dark night, me and the girls are coming to get you. And you’ll have nobody to back you up.’

Then she moved inches closer so I could catch her next words. ‘See, McGinty had it all wrong. Being in a gang means you belong. And you, Driscoll, don’t belong any more.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It was true. I didn’t belong any more. And every day after that, I could feel Wizzie and her gang watching me. They were going to get me for grassing, and I remembered all the times we’d come up against each other. I hadn’t been afraid then, but I’d always had my gang to back me up. Now I had no one.

It wasn’t that everyone turned against me. Moira Hood, in my class, a really nice girl, always asked me to sit with her in the canteen, came to talk to me in the yard. But they even managed to turn that against me.

‘I see you’re Moira’s latest charity case,’ Erin muttered one day as she passed me in the corridor.

A charity case, that’s exactly what I felt like.

Zak Riley offered to let me join his crowd. ‘You’re safer with a bunch of boys, Hannah.’ And that made all his friends laugh. If I’d thought he was serious I might just have agreed.

I met Rose’s brother coming out of the boys’ toilets one day and hurried after him. Rose thinks her brother’s brilliant and I thought that maybe if I could talk to him he would pass a message on to Rose.

I called after him and he turned round. I saw his eyes go up in exasperation. ‘What is it, Hannah?’

‘I want you to talk to Rose.’

‘I already have. I think you’re all acting like idiots. But girls fall out all the time. It’s not the end of the world, Hannah.’

I realised then that what was the end of the world for me, was to him just his sister and one of her pals having a falling out. He saw how pale my face was. How could he not?

‘Don’t let it get to you,’ he said. ‘You look ill.’

In a way, I was ill. I was sick to my stomach all the time. Because I cry myself to sleep every night, I wanted to tell him, but he answered it himself. ‘There’s a bug going about. Think you might have caught it.’ Then he took another step back as if he might catch it too.

He left, assuring me he would talk to his sister. I think he only said that to get away from me. When I turned from him, there were Wizzie and Grace and Lauren all watching and smirking. I felt even sicker.

My only hope was that it just might work. Rose thought the world of her big brother. Maybe she’d listen to him.

Everyone in school was aware that Wizzie and her gang had threatened to get me. Most people thought I had it coming – hadn’t I always been fighting with them? Moira thought I should tell one of the teachers. In Moira’s world, the teachers always helped. But I was done with teachers.

It was later that same day when Rose passed a note to me. For a moment, a wonderful moment, I thought I had the answer I was looking for. She even smiled, with those bright white teeth of hers she was so proud of. Teeth that didn’t need the brace everyone else wore. My hands were shaking as I unfolded it.

Don’t ever speak to my brother again. You deserve everything you get. Grass.

I looked back at her and her smile had turned to a snarl. Erin and the rest erupted with laughter. She’d told them all.

The teacher turned from the blackboard. ‘What’s the joke?’ he snapped.

And Erin mouthed to me, ‘You are.’

Wizzie saw it all. Her gaze seemed to say, ‘No one to
back you up. Not long now.’ It was as if she was playing with me, the way a cat plays with a mouse, waiting for the right moment to pounce on me. And I couldn’t get Wizzie’s knife out of my head. She’d never used it in a fight with us. In fact, I’d never even seen her with one. But it was all I thought about. She’d never use it on me, would she? But I had heard on the news just that morning, about a girl who had been stabbed in the school dinner queue because she’d grassed.

Even then my humiliation wasn’t over. I was scared to go out of the school gates that day, sure they would be waiting for me. If there had been another exit I would have used it. Erin and Heather hung back too.

‘What’s the problem, Hannah? Scared the Hell Cats are gonny get you?’

‘They’ll want to pay you back for all the times you fought with them,’ Heather said.

‘Not so bold now, are you?’

At last I found my voice. ‘How can you do this? I was your friend, remember? One for all and all that.’

Heather sniggered. ‘You’re the one who started it.’

‘That’s not true!’

Erin pulled her on, not wanting to listen. ‘Come on, Heather. She’s putting me off my tea.’

There was a sudden yell from behind us. Mrs Tasker came clattering down the corridor.

‘I heard that, Erin! Heard every word. You two,’ she pointed an angry finger at Erin and Heather, ‘are in my office first thing in the morning!’

I saw her glance at the gates. Wizzie and the Hell Cats were standing about casually. I could almost see her putting two and two together. Me, like a wimp, hiding inside the building, scared to go out in case they were waiting for me. ‘Hannah, I’ll take you home.’

I knew she meant well. Mrs Tasker always means well. But she only made things worse again. She led me out into the school yard, towards the car park. In full view of everyone, she was taking me home. Like I was some terrified little girl who needed protection. And wasn’t that what I was?

She drove through the school gates, and they were all standing there, watching. Wizzie, and Erin, and all the rest. Staring at me through the car window. They broke a path to let us through. I saw them snigger, make faces at me. I knew what they were thinking.

Maybe
, I thought,
I should go to a new school
. Because I decided then and there, I was never coming back to this one.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

All the way home, Mrs Tasker did her best to make me feel better. She is a nice woman. I could see that. She just couldn’t understand what was going on.

‘You just have to get over it, Hannah. I know it’s hard. I can see how cruel they’re being to you. But just you face up to them with your head held high, and you’ll soon get through this, and find other friends.’

Other friends? I couldn’t imagine it. I thanked her and she gripped my hand as I slid from the car.

‘See you tomorrow, Hannah?’

But I had already decided that she wouldn’t. I trudged upstairs to our flat and opened the door. The emptiness, the silence, only made me feel worse. Maybe if I’d been going home each day to a houseful of brothers and sisters my mind would have been lifted. I had too much time to think. But Mum was hardly ever here when I came home. Not her fault. She had to
work. This was her late shift. She wouldn’t be home for ages. Wouldn’t want to face her anyway.

She’d left something for me to microwave – lasagne – but I couldn’t eat anything. I even tried watching television for a while, but the film on Sky was about a teenager dying from some awful disease. Not exactly uplifting. I wanted to sleep, because at least when I was sleeping I could forget about it for a while. But when I lay on my bed, sleep just wouldn’t come. My mind was too full for sleep. I went over everything again and again, and it got worse every time. What had happened already, and what was yet to come.

Finally, I got up and went into the bathroom and opened the glass cabinet over the sink.

The first thing I saw – my mum’s sleeping pills.

She still kept them here, still trusted with them despite …

Mum’s secret that everyone knew and no one spoke about.

Usually I didn’t think about it either – pushed it to the very deepest corner of my mind. I thought about it now.

Remembered.

Remembered finding her on the floor when I
came in from school that day, and the note lying beside her.

Sorry, Hannah, I can’t go on any more …

I didn’t read the rest. I tore it to pieces I was so angry with her, so scared. The neighbours came and I was held back, too young to be involved. I watched them take her away on a stretcher, not knowing if she was alive or dead.

My aunt had looked after me while she was in hospital. She was angry too. She thought my mum was weak, couldn’t face up to life. They hadn’t spoken since.

I could never understand why she’d done it.

Dad had left, but our life wasn’t that bad. She had a job. We had this nice flat. It was something inside my mother that was wrong.

And now, for the first time, I understood. When I was asleep, I could forget about what was happening. I wanted to sleep all the time.

Maybe I wanted to sleep for ever.

I stared at her box of tablets and felt my face come out in a cold sweat.

Bet they’d all be sorry then.

I pictured my mum coming home and finding me in
bed. She wouldn’t worry, not then. I was always in bed early now. It would be morning before the panic would set in. She would come into my room and not be able to wake me up.

And
they
would all get the blame.

I could see the headlines.

THEY DROVE HER TO SUICIDE

And it would all come out, everything they had done to me. There would be an inquiry. An outcry. My story would be discussed on television. It would never happen again, some politician would promise.

And then, there would be my funeral.

I saw my coffin in the church, draped in white, a gold crucifix placed on top of it. And Erin, and Heather, and Rose, and all the rest would cower in the back, sobbing tears of shame. No one would talk to them. They’d be isolated. Alone.

Let them cry
, I thought. A sea of tears wouldn’t make up for what they’d done to me.

It would be too late.

Too late for me.

Too late for them.

All I had to do was open that bottle and swallow those tablets.

That was all.

So simple.

I would have my revenge.

Chapter Thirty

How long did I stand there in the bathroom just staring at those pills? It was as if time stood still. All I could think about was how I could make them all sorry for the way they had treated me.

But I wouldn’t be around to enjoy my revenge. I’d be dead and gone. I wouldn’t be able to see my funeral, witness their tears of misery, see the trouble they would be in. It would only be fun if I could leap out of my coffin at the right moment and yell at them, ‘Gotya!’