Afraid (2 page)

Still, whether or not Hayley was lying, she was her best mate, and Skye wasn’t about to betray her by dissing her to QTPye.

Oh well, hope she gets better soon
, QTPye typed now
. What you up to
?

Can’t sleep,
Skye told her, glad that the subject had been changed.

S’up? Folks at it again?

Yep.

Leave them to it, babes. Not worth the hassle.

I know. Just pisses me off.

Tell me about it,
QTPye sympathised.
Mine have been going at it all day as well. Wish they’d grow up and get a life instead of wrecking mine, selfish bastards.

Horrible, isn’t it?

The pits! But at least we’ve got each other, and you know you can talk to me about anything, don’t you?

Yeah, I know,
Skye replied gratefully.
It’s great having someone who understands what I’m going through.

I’m always here for you, babes, you know that.

Skye smiled when she read that. Like herself and Hayley, QTPye was fourteen, and had the same taste in music and boys. Hayley wasn’t so keen on her, but Skye suspected she was just jealous that they got on so well and was scared that they’d get too close and push her out. She didn’t want to upset Hayley, but she liked the other girl and didn’t see why she should have to stop being friends with her. Anyway, QTPye’s parents were also going through a rough patch, so she understood Skye in a way that Hayley, whose own parents were happy, never would.

About to type a reply now, Skye hesitated when she heard footsteps on the stairs. When, seconds later, a floorboard on the landing outside her door creaked, she quickly closed the laptop lid and pretended to be asleep in case her mum or dad looked in on her. They didn’t, and she listened as whichever one of them it was went into their own room. Drawers were opened and closed, and then the footsteps thundered back down the stairs, followed by the sound of the front door slamming shut.

Skye raised herself up on her elbow and eased the curtain aside in time to see her dad walk out onto the pavement below. A car’s headlights flashed in the darkness at the other end of the road, and when he walked quickly towards it she guessed that he must have ordered a taxi to take him to his mate’s place. That was what he usually did when things went as far as they had tonight, and she was glad, because at least it meant it was over.

As she watched her dad throw his work-bag onto the back seat of the car, Skye heard her mum sweeping up whatever had been smashed in the living room below. She was sobbing quietly as she did it, but Skye couldn’t summon up much sympathy for her right now. She was okay when she took her tablets regularly, but when she forgot, or decided that she was better and didn’t need them any more, she turned into a right cow, and Skye kind of understood why her dad ended up snapping.
Any
one would if they were pushed as far as her mum pushed him at times.

Still, it was a relief that her dad had taken to walking out after a fight, instead of waiting for her mum to call the police. Skye hated it when the cops came round, because they always got her out of bed to quiz her about what she’d heard and check if she’d been involved. She always had to lie and say that she had been asleep and had heard nothing, but she was always terrified that she might slip up and drop her parents in it – which was almost as stressful as having to listen to it in the first place.

When the car had driven away, Skye let the curtain drop and reopened the laptop to tell QTPye what was happening. She was disappointed to see that the girl’s light had turned red, but she figured it was probably just as well. If she didn’t get some sleep, she’d be so tired tomorrow that she would probably doze off in class and get put on report for a week.

Everything will be okay tomorrow
, she told herself as she closed the laptop down and slid it back under the bed.
Dad will come home from work and act as if nothing’s happened, and Mum will start taking her pills again, and then everything will go back to normal
.

Until the next time.

Annoyed with herself for allowing the unwelcome thought to creep in, Skye flopped down in the bed and dragged her quilt back up over her head.

2

The house was silent when Skye went downstairs the next morning, and she guessed that her mum had probably drunk herself to sleep after her dad had left, and wouldn’t surface again until later in the afternoon. Glad that she’d already put on her shoes when she heard glass crunch underfoot as she walked into the living room, she shook her head in disgust when she saw that the mirror above the fireplace had been smashed. The frame was hanging askew on the wall, and the shattered glass was sitting in a pile beside the fireplace, but tiny shards still littered the carpet so she tiptoed through them and went into the kitchen.

There was yet more evidence of the fight in there. Pieces of smashed cups and plates were scattered around the ledges and floor, the kettle was in the sink, and the fridge door was dented as if it had been punched. Depressed by the sight of it, and annoyed with her parents for wrecking what little was left of their home, Skye decided not to bother checking if there was anything for breakfast and, grabbing her schoolbag, headed angrily out.

Three girls were standing beside the entrance to the path at the rear of the school when Skye rounded the corner a short time later. A cloud of smoke was hovering in the air above their heads from the cigarette they were sharing, and she could hear them laughing at some younger kids who they were taking the piss out of. She pulled the hood of her jacket up over her head and scuttled past, hoping that they would be too preoccupied to notice her. But she hadn’t taken two steps down the path when a painful blow landed between her shoulder blades.

‘Where do you think you’re going, you scruffy bitch?’ Janet Hampson stepped in front of her and gave her a vicious shove in the chest.

‘School,’ Skye muttered, her gaze flicking nervously between each of the three girls. They were in the year above her, and they were the hardest girls in the school so everyone was scared of them.

‘Where’s my money?’ Janet demanded, a nasty glint in her eye.

‘Wh-what money?’ asked Skye, conscious that a crowd was beginning to form behind them.

‘
My
money!’ Janet seized her by the throat and shoved her up against the hedge that bordered the pathway. ‘You think you can walk this way without asking my permission or paying a toll?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Skye spluttered, wincing as the girl’s fake nails dug into her neck.

‘I
own
this path,’ Janet informed her. ‘And no one gets to come this way without my say-so.’

Tears of humiliation flooding her eyes when she heard laughter from the crowd, Skye said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll go the other way.’

‘Too late,’ said Janet, enjoying herself too much to let her victim go just like that. ‘You’ve trespassed, so now you’ll have to pay a fine. It’s a tenner. Pay up.’

‘I haven’t got any money,’ Skye whimpered, hating herself for being so weak.

‘Oh dear,’ Janet drawled nastily. ‘Well, you’ll have to pay some other way, then, won’t you?’

‘Can I give it to you tomorrow?’ Skye pleaded, terrified that she was about to get her head kicked in.

‘Nah, I want it now,’ Janet replied coldly. Then, her lips twisting with spite as an idea came to her, she said, ‘Take your skirt off.’

‘What?
No
!’ Skye’s cheeks turned scarlet as she clocked some boys grinning in anticipation.

‘You fuckin’ what?’ Janet bared her teeth and dug her nails in deeper. ‘You daring to disobey me, you little slag?’

Sickened by the smell of stale tobacco on Janet’s breath, and terrified that her windpipe would snap if the girl squeezed any harder, Skye felt as if she was about to faint.

‘What’s going on down there?’ a voice suddenly boomed from the school end of the path. ‘Get yourselves inside immediately. Anyone who’s late for registration will be on detention for a week!’

It was the headmaster, Mr Talbot, and even Janet – as tough as she liked to think she was – didn’t have the guts to ignore his command, because she immediately let go of Skye.

‘One word and you’re dead,’ she hissed as she backed away. ‘And you’d best have twenty quid for me first thing tomorrow – or else.’

She merged in with the crowd now, and moved off down the path. Mr Talbot clapped his hands to hurry them along.

Over their heads, he spotted Skye disentangling herself from the hedge, and raised his arm. ‘You, there!’ he called, clicking his fingers at her. ‘Come here.’

Skye dipped her head as she approached him, desperate to hide her tears and the marks that Janet’s nails had left on her neck, because he’d be bound to guess what had happened if he saw them.

When she reached him, Mr Talbot peered down at her with thinly concealed distaste. This was a deprived area, so a lot of his pupils fell short of his presentation and hygiene expectations. But this girl, with her lank hair, unhealthy pallor, scuffed shoes and grubby uniform, looked particularly unkempt.

‘Have you been fighting?’ he demanded.

‘No, sir.’ Skye shook her head. ‘I just tripped and fell into the hedge.’

Mr Talbot didn’t believe her, but before he could quiz her further the school bell rang and he remembered that he had a meeting to get to. ‘Right, in you go.’ He waved her on her way. ‘And don’t run or you’ll be going on report.’

Relieved to be off the hook, Skye walked quickly to her form room. If Mr Talbot had pushed for answers, she might have accidentally dropped Janet in it – and that would have been as good as signing her own death warrant. As it was, she still had to get her hands on twenty quid by tomorrow morning or she was in for a kicking at the very least. She had no idea how she was going to manage it, and the worry pressed down on her like a lead weight for the rest of the day.

When the home-time bell rang, she hid in the toilets until she was sure that everyone had left the premises. Then, scared that Janet and her friends might be waiting out back, she left by the front gate. It was the long way home, but at least she’d get there in one piece, and that was all she cared about right now.

Hayley was dozing, but she forced herself to wake up when she heard that Skye had come to visit.

‘Ten minutes,’ Kathy Simms cautioned as she waved her daughter’s friend into the bedroom. ‘The doctor said she needs to rest.’

Skye nodded and smiled politely, but the smile slipped as soon as the door closed, and she felt a twinge of envy nibble at her stomach as she gazed around. Her own room was decorated with shabby mismatched furniture that belonged to their landlord; the dresser drawers were dodgy, the wallpaper was ripped and showed patches of damp in every corner, and her lumpy mattress had probably been slept on by a thousand people before her. In contrast, Hayley’s room was every princess’s dream; from the silky pink wallpaper and pretty white furniture, to the comfortable-looking bed with its plump pillows and thick duvet. But it was the small flat-screen TV sitting on the chest of drawers facing the bed that really irked Skye. They didn’t even have a TV as good as that in the living room at their house, never mind one all for herself in her bedroom.

Hayley was peering up at Skye from the bed. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked when she saw the look on her face.

‘What?’ Skye shook herself out of it and turned around. She immediately felt guilty for having thought that Hayley was putting her illness on when she saw how pale she was, and how dark the rings around her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised, perching on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s been a crap day. But never mind me, how are you? You look terrible.’

‘Wow, thanks.’ Hayley gave a weak smile and pushed herself up on her pillows. ‘I’m so sick of these chest infections. It’s like I only have to look at someone blowing their nose and I catch another one.’

‘What’s the doctor said?’

‘The usual.’ Hayley shrugged. ‘Rest, drink loads of water, and take my antibiotics. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that. What’s up with you?’

‘Had a run-in with Janet Hampson and her bulldogs,’ Skye told her. ‘The bitch jumped me this morning and said I had to pay to go down the path.’

‘Cheeky cow!’ Hayley was indignant. ‘What did you do?’

‘Told her to piss off,’ Skye lied. Then, rolling her eyes, she admitted, ‘Nothing I
could
do, was there? I stood no chance against the three of them.’ She looked down at her feet now, and chewed on her lip for a moment before saying, ‘Can you lend us twenty quid?’

‘
Twenty?
’ Hayley’s eyebrows shot up. ‘That’s a bit much, isn’t it? What do you need it for?’

‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter,’ Skye said miserably. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

Hayley frowned when Skye’s shoulders slumped. She’d never seen her as low as this, and Skye had never asked to borrow money before. Concerned, she said, ‘What’s wrong, hon?’

‘Nothing,’ Skye lied.

‘There clearly is,’ Hayley persisted. ‘And you know you can tell me anything, don’t you?’

Skye sniffed softly and gave a wan smile. ‘That’s what QTPye said last night when I told her my mum and dad were at it again. Doesn’t change anything, though, does it? Talking, I mean.’

‘Depends
who
you’re talking to,’ said Hayley, battling resentment at the thought of Skye chatting to
that
girl without her again. She knew it was unreasonable; that she had no right to expect Skye not to be friends with anyone else. But she couldn’t help it. She was supposed to be Skye’s best friend, and they were only supposed to tell each other their secrets, no one else.

Skye sighed and shook her head. ‘Nah, it doesn’t make any difference; nothing ever changes.’ She stood up now and forced a smile. ‘I’d best go before your mum kicks me out.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Hayley said decisively. ‘Pass me my piggy bank.’

‘No, it’s okay.’ Skye backed towards the door. ‘It’s my problem, I’ll sort it.’