The Secrets Club (3 page)

‘Where did you get that bruise
from?' squeals Georgia. My heart sinks.

‘OMG!' Zadie's and
Chantelle's mouths drop open simultaneously and immediately a crowd gathers
round me in the changing room to gawp at my multi-coloured shin.

I have to admit it is pretty impressive,
though no one had noticed until now because it was hidden beneath my trousers. But
now I've taken them off for PE it's on display for everyone to see. I
should have remembered that for drama queens like the Barbies a simple zit is a
cause for hysteria, let alone a massive bruise like this.

‘What did you do?' asks
Lissa.

‘Fell over.'

‘When?'

‘Saturday.' Immediately I
wish I could take
back that one little
word and change it to Sunday as I watch her face cloud over.

‘At your gran's?' she
says suspiciously.

‘Yep, at my gran's,' I
say with a sigh.

‘How come?'

‘She lives on a hill. I took a
tumble.'

‘Like Jack and Jill!'
giggles Georgia and her clones join in. I silence them with a look. I knew this
would happen. A mass inquisition. I should've been better prepared.

‘Have you broken it?' asks
Tash.

‘No, of course I haven't
broken it,' I say scathingly, though I must admit exactly that thought had
crossed my mind when Marvyn's boot had come into collision with my shin. The
pain had taken my breath away and brought tears to my eyes. I'd dashed them
away quickly before he could see them. They're such a girly thing, tears.

‘Does it hurt?' asks Ali,
stretching out her hand to touch it, and automatically I jerk it away. Ouch!

‘Not if you leave it alone!'
I say between gritted teeth.

‘What's going on?'
comes a voice and Mrs Waters, our PE teacher, makes an entrance.

‘Look at Dani's leg, Miss!' shrieks Zadie.
Oh no!

‘It's nothing!' I say,
but the teacher's eyes widen and she kneels down to examine it.

‘That's quite an injury.
Have you had this seen to?'

‘Yes, Miss,' I say.
‘My mum's a nurse.'

It's only half a lie. Mum is a
nurse. But she hasn't seen it. I don't want her to. Too many questions.
I pull my sock up over my shin and busy myself lacing up my hockey boots.

‘What happened?'

‘She fell over,' says Zadie
importantly, loving the drama.

‘Really?' Mrs Waters raises
her eyebrows. ‘It looks more like a contact injury to me. Does your mum say
you're OK to play hockey on it, Dani?'

‘Yes, Miss.'

‘Good. Because you could earn a
place at the Junior Development Centre if you continue to play as well as you have
been. I'm considering putting you forward for it.'

Everyone cheers and I can feel myself
beaming. I'm not quite sure how it works but I know that basically it means
you get extra training so
you can play at
county level. Sounds good to me.

‘Are you considering putting
anyone else forward, Miss?' asks Lissa hopefully.

‘Not yet, Lissa,' says Mrs
Waters. ‘It's most unusual for a Year Seven student to get into the
centre. I don't know if it's happened before. But Dani's
exceptional.' Lissa's face falls. ‘That doesn't mean you
stop trying,' adds Mrs Waters kindly. ‘You could be next. Now, come on,
you lot, hurry up outside. We've got a lesson to get on with.'

The field is muddy and it's not
easy practising our skills. My leg hurts. I'll be glad when the new
all-weather pitch is in place that we raised money for before half term. We put on
an eco fashion show, not my sort of thing at all, but it turned out to be an awesome
evening. Ali masterminded it all with Lissa and Austen's help but she kept the
finale a secret till the very last minute. She's a real dark horse that one,
not even Lissa guessed what she was up to and it's hard to pull the wool over
her
eyes, I can tell you.

We move from skills to a game, then
finally we troop off the field, covered in mud. Or in
my case, hobble off. My leg has held up but it's really
throbbing now.

Nothing wrong with my ears though. Mum
always says I'm like a cat, my hearing is so good. Behind me Ali is brimming
with sympathy. ‘Poor old Dani, she looks like she's in agony.'

I'm about to turn round and say
I'm all right when I hear someone mutter, ‘She never got that bruise
falling down.' It's Lissa. I ignore her and carry on walking, trying my
best not to limp.

‘What d'you mean?'
Tash's voice chips in.

‘You heard Mrs Waters,'
Lissa says in a low voice. ‘She said it looked like a contact injury, and she
should know.'

‘So?' Tash's voice is
challenging. She knows Lissa's up to something but she doesn't know
what.

I do. Lissa's no fool. Her next
words confirm she's on to me.

‘Dani said she couldn't meet
up with us on Saturday cos she had to go to her gran's.'

‘And your point is …?'
says Tash, sounding bored.

‘Duh! My point is she never went
to her gran's
at all. She went and
played football with her mates instead of coming out with us.'

Like I said. You can't pull the
wool over Lissa's eyes.

I hate people talking about me behind
my back. I turn round and stare Lissa straight in the eye. ‘You got something
to say to me, say it to my face.'

The three of them stop short, shocked.
It doesn't sound like me, happy-go-lucky Dani – normally so laidback I'm
practically horizontal.

To Lissa's credit, even though her
face is scarlet, she sticks to her guns.

‘I'm not having a go at you,
Dani, but it's pretty obvious you got that bruise playing football.'

‘What if I did?'

‘You said you'd come out
with us on Saturday.'

‘I know. I was going to. But I
told you, I had to see my gran instead.'

‘Yeah, right. So how come you got
that great
big bruise then? Kick you in
the shins, did she?' She laughs like it's a joke but I know it's
not.

They're all staring at me,
waiting.

‘Get a move on, you lot!'
shouts Mrs Waters from the changing rooms. ‘The bell's about to
go!'

‘Come on,' says Ali, her
face troubled, and she breaks into a run. Lissa and Tash follow her, leaving me to
bring up the rear. No one says anything while we're getting dressed. I
deliberately take my time, seething with rage because I feel that Lissa has backed
me into a corner. The others leave before me. When I finally emerge from the
changing rooms break is over and it's time for the next lesson.

The house is quiet when I get home from
school that day. My mum's a nurse practitioner at a GP surgery in town and on
the days that she works late Jade goes to after-school clubs till Mum's ready
to collect her. Since I started at Riverside I'm allowed to come straight
home. I'm not on my own for long and I quite like it. I usually change out of
my uniform and get my homework done and out of the way. Or sometimes I go and kick a
ball around with the
lads in the street
till the others come home and tea's ready.

Today I don't know what I want to
do. I'm feeling all churned-up inside.

Nobody had said any more to me about
playing football, not even Lissa. If they had, maybe I would've told them the
truth. Nobody had another go at me, but all day it was awkward. After French it was
lunchtime and we went and sat at our usual picnic bench. The atmosphere was strained
and for the first time since we'd got to know each other it was like nobody
could think of anything to say.

But then Lissa, who loves her food,
started talking about the panini she'd had on Saturday and then Tash went into
raptures about what she'd had to eat. It turned out they'd sat chatting
in the cafe for so long they'd ended up having lunch there as well. Then they
started telling me about how the Barbies had seen them and they'd come into
the cafe and ordered something to eat too, making out this was what they did all the
time, but Chantelle couldn't even pronounce what she was asking for. And they
all seemed to think this was hilarious but it didn't seem that funny to me. It
just seemed
artificial, like everyone was
pretending everything was normal when it wasn't.

Afterwards they'd gone round the
shops and tried stuff on. I'm really not interested in clothes shopping and I
thought Ali wasn't either, but today she was as bad as the other two. I made
an effort to join in the conversation but it's hard if you weren't there
and, anyway, it was really boring. In the end I just sat there grinning and nodding
and let them rabbit on. And on. And on.

I found out something weird today.

You can be on your own and not feel
lonely at all. But you can be in the middle of your best mates, looking like
you're having the time of your life, and inside you feel completely
isolated.

I take out my history work and start
writing up notes I'd made in the lesson. After that I try to learn some French
vocab but it's no good, my heart's not in it. I pick up my phone and
find myself pressing Lissa's number. I need to apologize to her for snapping
her head off, for my sake as much as hers. I hate atmospheres, they freak me out. It
reminds me what it was like when Mum and Dad were breaking up.

But Lissa's number is busy. She's on the phone to someone. Tash or
Ali, no doubt. I bet they're talking about me.

There's a knock on the door. A kid
from down the street is standing there with a football under his arm.

‘Wanna game?' he asks
hopefully.

I hesitate. I really want to but my leg
is sore and I've played a full game of hockey on it already today. It's
important that it's completely healed by Saturday. I put my phone back to my
ear. It's still engaged.

‘Yeah,' I say, hanging up.
‘Why not?'