Life of the Party (3 page)

Clutching my plastic bag in one trembling hand, I shoved open the wrought iron gates. They creaked and groaned like something out of a bad scary movie. Not that movies frightened me any more: there were scarier things in the world than special effects. I wished I could tell Steph that. Steph used to shriek like a banshee at
the gory bits. Steph loved scary movies.

This place looked different without all the people, all the black cars. The lawns and beds were lovely and empty and soulless, a manicured municipal garden. Except for the regimented headstones, of course. Except for those.

My heart thrashed. I desperately didn’t want to be seen. I still felt like some primitive life-form that hadn’t been long out of the swamp, and I didn’t think I was ever going to stop feeling that way.

It had been two months now, and this was the first time I’d come here since the funeral. It took me a while to find the right row, and then a little longer to find the exact place, because there wasn’t a proper headstone yet. Maybe it wasn’t all that hard to find; maybe deep down I just didn’t want to. Maybe if I couldn’t find it, it
wouldn’t be here, it would all have been some mad hallucination. Just a drink-fuelled nightmare.

But no. There it was. There she was. There was my best friend, buried in cold earth. A drink-fuelled nightmare right enough.

There was no one around, so I breathed a shaky sigh of relief and sat down cross-legged. Rummaging in my plastic bag I brought out a small potted chrysanthemum: £3.99 on special at the supermarket. Some of the leaves were a bit crushed, so I tweaked them ineffectually.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told Steph. ‘It’s pretty rubbish.’

I put it down on her grave anyway, and pulled my cider bottle out of the bag.

Guiltily I glanced around. If anybody saw me I’d be mortified. But there was no one,
so I twisted the bottle open, holding it away as cider foamed up out of the neck. When it settled, I filled a plastic cup, then trickled it on to the turf that covered my friend.

‘There you go,’ I said. ‘I was reading about the Greeks. And they used to do this. And I thought you might like a drink.’ I didn’t feel as stupid talking out loud as I thought I would, so I tipped out another cupful for her. ‘So there you go. Kiddo.’

That’s when I started to cry. I hadn’t meant to, it just happened. I’d cried before, of course, but not like this. I cried till I couldn’t breathe, I cried till my whole body was empty.

I don’t know how long I went on, but by the end of it I had a raging thirst. I looked at the bottle, and I looked at Steph’s grave, and I looked at the bottle again.

‘It’s a bit early for me,’ I told her with a
weak smile. I poured myself a half glass, though, because I really was thirsty. I took one mouthful.

‘Bit early for me too, but I’ll have a half,’ said Rob Yeadon.

Trying to jump up, I almost fell over.

‘What are you doing here?’ I barked, trying to rub my eyes without making them even more bloodshot and swollen. ‘You’ve got a nerve!’

‘Oh yeah. How have I got a nerve?’ His lip curled.

I wanted to hit him in the face with the cider bottle.

‘You never even liked her. And she never liked you!’

‘Yeah? So what?’

‘So you shouldn’t be here.’ I called him something terrible. I told him where to go. Then a horrible thought struck me, turning
my leaden stomach. ‘How long have you been here?’

He shrugged.

‘Just got here,’ he lied. ‘Minute ago.’

It was nice of him to lie, instead of mocking me. So when he sat down at my side, I didn’t bite his head off, but poured him half a cup of cider instead.

‘Do they know what happened yet?’ he asked.

I shrugged.

‘Doesn’t everyone? Kieran was hammered. The car left the road and hit a tree. They say he must have been doing seventy on the corner. He’s still in hospital.’

Rob examined his drink.

‘It’s the wrong one that died, isn’t it?’

That was what I kept thinking too, so I surprised myself when I said, ‘There’s never a right one to die, is there?’

‘Maybe not.’

At least the stupid jerk Kieran was in hospital. At least he got hurt. Not very charitable of me, but the best I could do with my furious grief. And Calum and Jenna and Ricky weren’t badly hurt. At least he didn’t kill them too.

What a lottery it was.

‘See, it’s my fault,’ I said. ‘Steph was all wrapped up in Calum, she didn’t know how much Kieran had been drinking. I should have realised. He was sitting right beside me. Three big bottles, nearly! Should have known I couldn’t get through all that by myself.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Rob, smiling slightly.

I gave him a sharp look, then thought:
Well. I deserved that.

‘She offered to walk me home,’ I went on.
‘I wouldn’t let her. I’d kind of fallen out with her.’ Fiercely I rubbed my eye.

I’m fed up with you, okay
? That’s what I’d yelled at her.
I don’t need you.
I don’t want your company.

Well, I sure didn’t have it now. I rubbed my whole face with the palm of my hand. It was wet. I’d thought I’d dried up my tear ducts, but obviously not.

‘Listen,’ said Rob. ‘She got in the car all by herself.’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘She knew he’d been drinking. How would she not know? Even if she didn’t know how much, she must have known he’d been drinking.’

‘I told her where to go,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t let her come with me.’

‘You’ve just told me where to go,’ pointed out Rob. ‘But if I fall down a hole on my
way home it won’t really be your fault.’

His logic infuriated me. Sniffing hard, I stared at the sky.

‘I still feel like a piece of dirt.’

‘Yeah, course. You will do.’

Which, in a funny way, made me feel better. I was up to glowering at him again.

‘So why are you here?’ I said belligerently.

Taking a mouthful of cider, he wrinkled his nose and poured out the rest. Then he pointed the empty cup at a headstone two rows away.

‘That’s my dad,’ he said.

Blood rushed to my face. I knew his dad was dead; stupid of me. He’d been dead for a few years. Rob had been at a different primary from me, so I don’t know what had happened to his dad. Never liked to ask, never had the nerve. But I should have realised that’s why Rob was here. Not for
Steph at all.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

‘S’okay.’ He balanced his plastic cup on his fingertip, catching it when it fell. ‘Died of drink, y’know. Just like Steph.’

I bristled.

‘Steph didn’t die of –’

‘Well, neither did Dad, really. He died of a number 22 bus. He was out on the lash with his mates and they were fooling around and he stepped back into the road and –’ He shrugged. ‘Well. Hit by the proverbial bus. How stupid is that?’

I looked at my plastic cup of cider. How stupid is that? I hadn’t drunk any more of it and the urge had gone for the moment, so I trickled it back into the bottle and stuffed the bottle back in its bag. Not knowing what to say, I stared at Rob’s dad’s headstone. It was black marble with a
curlicued border, and an etching of roses twined round a racing car.

‘That,’ I said, ‘is the ugliest headstone I’ve ever seen.’

Which just goes to prove I’ve got a big mouth, even when I haven’t been drinking.

All Rob said was, ‘Yeah. Hideous, isn’t it?’

We sat in companionable silence for a while. The autumn sun was warm on the back of my neck and I felt a little more peaceful now. I think all that crying had helped. I wished Steph hadn’t got in the car with Kieran. I wished more than anything I’d been there to stop her.

‘Sorry I kept winding you up,’ said Rob, hurriedly and half under his breath.

‘Yeah, that’s okay,’ I said.

‘So do you want walking home?’ he asked. ‘Or are you going to tell me where to go?’

I could have said
I don’t need you
or
I don’t want your company.
But look what happened last time.

Besides, I didn’t want to say it. I still couldn’t stand him, and I decided he probably still despised me, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and he seemed to be trying hard to spare mine. I didn’t want to go out with him. Not right now. I wasn’t in a fit state to have a friend, and I probably didn’t deserve one. But I’d started to hope I might not feel that way forever.

As I got to my feet I picked up my plastic bag. There was a wheelie bin right outside the cemetery gates, and this bottle would be flat before I felt like drinking it again.

‘Yeah,’ I said, and smiled at Rob. ‘You can walk me home.’

More great reads in the
S
HADES
2.0
series:

Witness
by Anne Cassidy

Shouting at the Stars
by David Belbin

Blitz
by David Orme

Virus
by Mary Chapman

Fighting Back
by Helen Orme

Hunter’s Moon
by John Townsend

Animal Lab
by Malcolm Rose

Tears of a Friend
by Jo Cotterill

Danger Money
by Mary Chapman

A Murder of Crows
by Penny Bates

Doing the Double
by Alan Durant

Mantrap
by Tish Farrell

Coming in to Land
by Dennis Hamley

Plague
by David Orme

Treachery by Night
by Ann Ruffell

Mind’s Eye
by Gillian Philip

Gateway from Hell
by David Orme

Four Degrees More
by Malcolm Rose

Who Cares?
by Helen Orme

Cry, Baby
by Jill Atkins

The Messenger
by John Townsend

Asteroid
by Malcolm Rose

Space Explorers
by David Orme

Hauntings
by Mary Chapman

The Scream
by Penny Bates

Rising Tide
by Anne Rooney

Stone Robbers
by Tish Farrell

Fire!
by David Orme

Invasion
by Mary Chapman

Another great Shades 2.0 title by Gillian Philip:

Here is Chapter One:

‘Freaks, that lot. They ought to give them a separate canteen, my mum says. Separate
school
.’

Billie was glaring over my shoulder at the table where the telepathic kids sat together. I wasn’t bothered, but I knew Billie’s mum had a thing about them. So did Billie.

‘Ignore them,’ I told her. ‘They can’t hurt
you. Not when they’ve got implants.’

‘Bunch of Braindeads.’ Billie wouldn’t let it go. ‘See that bigger boy? Conor Smith?’

I turned, trying not to be obvious. It was clear which one she meant. He was much taller than the other five, with shadowy eyes and cropped hair, and if he hadn’t been a Braindead I’d have thought he was pretty good looking. His shoulders stiffened, as if he could feel me watching, then he lifted his head. As his glittering eyes locked with mine, full of contempt, I snapped back round, reddening.

‘The nerve of him,’ said Billie indignantly. ‘Staring at a normal kid. Hey, Smith!’ she shouted at him. ‘Go back to your remedial class!’

There were times I didn’t like Billie all that much. But she was bright and popular and bubbly. She was my best friend, and I
adored her. Besides, her popularity rubbed off on me.

Leaning over, she whispered, ‘Conor Smith nearly killed somebody.’

‘Really?’ I asked in awe.

‘Before he got his implant. His parents objected, went to court to try and stop the operation, and while they were wasting all that time he attacked a boy. Poor kid was in a coma for a week and he still gets headaches.’

I shivered. ‘They should have
made
his parents get him an implant.’

‘After that they did.’ She added indignantly, ‘His parents should be in jail. Him too.’

Too right. Braindeads were scary. When did they start appearing: twenty years ago? Just evolution, some said. A bunch of kids started hitting puberty and turning far too
smart and – well, it was bound to happen.

Maybe it was mischief, maybe it was malice, but bank accounts got emptied, PIN numbers weren’t secret any more, health and employment records were rifled, identities stolen … Of course the government had to rush through legislation. Of course telepaths had to be controlled. They weren’t
all
bad, but we had to be protected, the government said. My dad said something different, but the day Dad agrees with the government about anything, I’ll eat a bucket of slugs.

So thirteen years ago, when government scientists came up with implants that immobilised the bad bit of their brains, everyone (except my dad) was delighted. The implants gave the Braindeads terrible headaches, so they tended to miss a lot of school, and that was why they needed
remedial teaching. But it was for everybody’s good, after all. Even theirs.

With a scrape of chairs the Braindeads stood up, gathering books, while the other students eyed them suspiciously. The tall crop-haired guy stared right back, defiantly. Conor Smith seemed kind of rebellious for a Braindead, and he’d kept his hair shaved, so you could see the implant scar on his scalp. Like he was making a point or something.

All the others had grown their hair again, to hide the scars – except for the girl who’d obviously just had hers. She was pale and timid, and she kept rubbing nervously at her cropped scalp. Conor Smith seemed protective of her. Braindeads stuck together like that. You could see how dangerous they’d be in a pack.

A crowd of boys shoved past the
Braindeads, and one of them shouldered the new girl, making her stumble. Billie giggled, so I did too, but Conor Smith turned and lunged at the shover. Martin Leary, the ugly little troublemaker. Typical.

A Braindead girl grabbed Conor’s arm just in time, dragging him back.

‘Come on then, ya Braindead,’ jeered Martin. ‘Come on if you’re hard enough.’

Conor stared at him, silent. Martin shivered, shook himself, then fired a gob of spittle on to Conor’s sleeve.

‘Good shot, Marty!’ shouted Billie.

All Conor Smith did was give us a look of contempt, then walk away with the other Braindeads. He made me feel like a piece of dirt. Scowling, I turned to Billie.

‘Come on, then,’ I said.

She was still ogling Martin Leary in romantic admiration. Billie had no taste in
men. My dad called Martin a nasty little thug, but these days Dad seemed to hate everyone on the planet. Funny, because he wasn’t always like that. He wasn’t so bitter when Mel and I were little – just sad – but maybe being a single parent to two teenagers had pushed him over the edge into full-blown grumpiness. Dad and I were always fighting and slamming doors, since I was pretty bad-tempered too, but I had an excuse: the irritating buzz in my ears. Tinnitus, pronounced my know-all sister, from playing my music too loud.

‘
Come on
.’ I nudged Billie again.

‘Come on where?’

I sighed. ‘Computer room! You wanted to look up that band Martin told you about?’

‘Yeah.’ She gave me a funny frown. ‘Yeah, course. Let’s go.’

She was quiet on the way. I was pushing
open the door when she spoke again.

‘I never said anything about this,’ she said.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Coming in here. I never mentioned it.’

I shrugged. ‘You must’ve.’

‘No, I never. It was a spur of the moment thing. I only remembered when I saw Marty.’

For an instant my spine tingled, but I shook myself and shrugged again. I didn’t know what she was getting at.

Martin’s precious band snapped her out of her odd mood. I was leaning on her chairback and offering unhelpful suggestions, making her laugh as she tapped at the keyboard, when Mr Galt rapped the door.

‘There you are, Lara.’ He frowned. ‘Mr Jaffrey’s looking for you. Could you go to his
office, please?’

Billie raised her head, puzzled, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

‘Now?’ I asked stupidly.

‘
Now
.’

I shrugged again. Lately it seemed I couldn’t do anything right around Galt. He never said anything, but I got the feeling I’d annoyed him, big time.

‘See ya later,’ I told Billie, hefting my schoolbag.

I half-turned so she could reply ‘Alligator’ like she always did.

But, pretending not to hear me, she glowered at the screen, battering her keyboard like she was trying to do it a permanent injury.