Girl 38

by Eva Jozefkowicz

  ‘That’s all right.’ I didn’t mind, but I could hear Gem’s voice in my head saying, She’s even trying to steal your cat.

  Within minutes, Ania had put two steaming cups on the coffee table and had taken out an old oil-paint set to examine the different colours that it contained. The shakiness in her fingers seemed to lessen as she handled them.

  My question burst out of me before I could stop it: ‘Have you ever had a friend who persuaded you to do stuff, even if you didn’t want to?’

  She looked up, surprised.

  ‘Hmm… let me think. When I was your age… well, I was quite – what’s the word? Bold? Strong-willed? – if anything, I was probably the one who encouraged my friends to do things that they didn’t want to do. I often regretted it later. But I suppose I always told myself that I was doing it for the right reasons.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Well… you remember the girl in the painting? Mila? She was my best friend. She was always so shy and quiet. She wouldn’t stand up for herself. There was a time, for example, when she was accused by the village shopkeeper of stealing apples from the store. She hadn’t done it. She would never do anything like that, but he had his reasons to choose her as the scapegoat. Later the crate of apples was found. It just hadn’t been taken off the delivery cart yet. He apologised, but I still wanted to teach him a lesson. One day, I saw that he’d left his new white bed linen to dry out in his front yard. It was a silly thing to do, as it was the middle of winter and the night frost had made the sheets rock-solid. I persuaded Mila to come with me and punch holes in them. You could put your fist through and make a hole because of how hard they were. He was so angry because they looked like Swiss cheese by the time we were done with them.’ She chuckled to herself.

  ‘Why did he use her as a scapegoat?’

  ‘It’s because she was of Jewish heritage. At the time, there was a lot of suspicion about anyone Jewish, even if they were not practising Jews. Mila’s family actually went to our local church, they were more Catholic than Jewish, but it made no difference to those who decided that they hated her. A lot of people in my village did not like what was happening in their world, and they wanted someone to blame, you see. I said that I would not join them, so they turned against me too.’

  ‘Is that why you jumped from the train?’

  She thought about my question.

  ‘You could say so. But there is a lot more to that story.’

  There was something in Ania’s words that soothed the awful hammering of guilt in my chest, and I wanted her to continue talking to me. I needed to escape, if only for a short while, from the horrible present.

  ‘Will you start from the beginning?’ I asked her.

  And she did.

  ‘It was a world very different to this one. I lived in a small village where all the locals were friends and everyone knew everyone else’s business. We were a long way from the nearest town, and there were no cars or telephones. Most of the roads near to my house were dirt tracks in between huge fields, each filled with different crops. When I walked home from the high street, I would see men and women at work, their scythes swinging like butterfly wings.

  ‘Where this story begins, I was a bit older than you. I had turned fourteen and I started to think about what I was going to do when I finished school. I suppose that most girls after they graduated would start looking for a husband, but I wanted to do something more exciting. I promised myself that I would move to a big city and get my own little house and become an art teacher. I think I realised even then that being an artist would not make me very much money, so I would have to teach. You see, I did not want to be dependent on anybody. I decided that I would make my own way. The only person that I badly wanted to come with me was Mila. I always imagined that we would do everything together.’

  I tried to picture Gem and me living and working together in ten years’ time. Maybe we just weren’t the kind of friends that Ania and Mila were.

  ‘As I told you earlier,’ Ania continued, ‘some people were suspicious of Mila because of her origins, and that included many of the children in our class. They’d been told by their parents that Jewish people brought trouble with them, and they decided to remind her about this at every opportunity. They would sing songs about how she was a horrible germ-ridden thief.

  ‘None of it was true, but they believed it. I am sure that the taunting was worse, because the bullies could see that she was so intelligent and interesting – she always had views about even the most boring things. She had to put up with it for years, but at least it was nothing more than taunts. That was, until that day. I later wondered whether Mila knew something terrible was going to happen, because she seemed different for about a week before.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘A bit quieter, more scared. The night before that day, she didn’t return my signal. Our gardens were opposite each other, and although our houses were a short distance away, I could see the window of her bedroom. We would often send messages to each other in Morse Code using candles and pieces of card that we had painted black. We studied the code from a book and we became very good. I tried to signal to her several times that night, but there was no response. I wasn’t worried, because sometimes her mother would tell her off for staying up too late, and we had to cut our Morse-Code conversation short. I thought that we would get to pick it up again next day.

  ‘As it turned out, there wouldn’t be another conversation, because next day everything changed.’

  I waited for her to carry on, but she was looking beyond me, through the windows that opened on to the front garden. She seemed lost in thought, in another place.

  ‘I have to go,’ I told her gently, ‘but I’ll come back very soon, if that’s OK?’

  ‘You know where to find me,’ she said, smiling.

  FIVE

  Mum and Dad were home moments after me. Lena didn’t tell them that I’d only just come back, probably because she was scared that she’d be told off for not keeping an eye on me. She didn’t know them very well yet, because they wouldn’t have minded. In fact, I told Dad straightaway about Ania.

  ‘She’s a lovely lady,’ he said, pouring himself a drink. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t had a chance to speak to her before.’

  ‘I know, but I am now, and she’s telling me her story.’

  ‘Her story?’

  ‘Of what happened to her and her best friend when she was young.’

  ‘I see. What sort of a story is it?’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve found out,’ I promised him. ‘I have a feeling it’ll be incredibly exciting.’

  ‘How ya hanging, Katty?’ Mum asked, ruffling my hair as she sat down to eat. We have this thing going where Mum pretends she’s ‘down with the kids’ and speaks in the way she thinks me and my friends do, except they’re all weird phrases that she’s probably heard on some old American TV show. We both laughed.

  ‘You know, same as always,’ I told her, although this wasn’t strictly true. ‘There’s a new boy in our class. His name is Julius. He’s a bit strange, but in a good way.’

  ‘Julius? Sounds a bit grand,’ said Dad. ‘Like Julius Caesar.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, if you’d met him, I don’t think you’d say that he’s very grand. And he’s just moved from some little village up on a Scottish island. Gem hates him.’

  ‘Oh, she does, does she?’ Dad asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘I bet I can guess why. Is it possibly because he’s better than her at something? Or that he’s a kinder person and not only interested in himself? Because I think that’s probably not difficult.’

  ‘Stop it, Stephen. The poor girl’s not nearly as bad as you make out,’ Mum said.

  Ever since I’d met Gem, Dad had told me I should stand up to her. But it wasn’t as easy as he thought. Gem had always been nice to me, and there were many people she wasn’t nice to. I didn’t really have a choice. It was a weird kind of friendship, but I always thought t
hat in her own way, she looked out for me. That was, at least until we got to Marley High.

  My phone started to ring before Mum had finished eating. She nodded that it was OK if I answered it. It was Gem.

  ‘Right, I have a plan.’

  ‘A plan for what?’ I asked, although I could guess.

  ‘That idiot didn’t care about the maggots. He probably had loads of them in the hovel he lived in before. I’ve decided that we need to go bigger and I’ve come up with a great idea. We’re going to get him to dress up as even more of a fool than he actually is. You know we have Own Clothes Day for charity?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s always in January, isn’t it? We only do it once a year, remember?’

  ‘Duh. I know that, but he doesn’t. We could tell him anything and he’d believe it. He has no idea how things are run in our school. In fact, I thought we’d make it better than Own Clothes Day. We’ll give it a theme to make him look even more stupid. I was thinking we’d tell him that he has to dress up as a character from his favourite film.’

  I knew that I would be expected to play some sort of part in this and I was about to be told what. I desperately tried to think of some reason why her idea wouldn’t work, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that any protests were already too late. I was right.

  ‘I’ve written a letter to give to him,’ she announced. ‘I’ve shown it to Dilly and she agrees that it’s super convincing. I’ve based it on other parents’ letters we’ve had and now I need your help with getting the signature on to the bottom of it, and the school logo at the top. You know I’m rubbish at stuff like that. I’m going to email it to you now. Just print it out and bring it in tomorrow, yeah?’

  And she finished the call before I’d even had a chance to respond. Even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have made a difference, as I never would have argued with her. I was pretty certain that she was asking for my help not because she couldn’t work out how to add the graphics, but because it was a way of making sure that she wasn’t found holding the letter. I would bring it into school tomorrow and if anyone got caught red-handed, it would be me.

  I sat on the stairs, still staring at my phone. This idea of Gem’s was worse than anything she’d come up with so far. At least with the maggots, only Arun and a couple of the others had noticed what had happened. Here, our whole class, maybe even the whole school, would see Julius being humiliated. It wasn’t fair. Nobody deserved that.

  I frantically searched for a way of scuppering the plan. I could call her back and tell her that our printer wasn’t working or that Mum needed the computer so I wouldn’t be able to do it. But the trouble with Gem is that she’s known me for so long she can see through any of my lies.

  Eventually, I gave up, as I always did. I went into my parents’ bedroom and sat at the laptop. I knew that they wouldn’t be using it for at least another hour, so I logged into my emails. The whole thing took me less than ten minutes. I scanned in an old letter, copied over the relevant bits, then put them together with Gem’s text and printed it.

  What made it even worse was that Gem had signed the letter from Mr Kim – lovely, wonderful Mr Kim. I could just imagine what he would think of me if he found out that I was involved in this.

  Dear Parent/Guardian,

  I am writing to remind you that on Wednesday we will be running an Own Clothes Day with a twist – we would like to encourage pupils to dress up as their favourite film character, all in the name of charity. The standard donation for taking part will be £2 per pupil, but we do welcome larger sums, should you wish to give more. There will be prizes for the most exciting costumes, so we encourage everyone to be as imaginative as they can.

  We do hope that an enjoyable day will be had by all.

  Kind regards,

  Mr Elliot Kim

  8K Form Teacher

  *

  ‘Did you bring it?’ asked Gem, the moment she saw me in our classroom next morning.

  I nodded and tried to pass her the envelope, but as I predicted, she indicated that I should keep it.

  ‘It’s going to be awesome!’ whispered Dilly, rubbing her hands together. ‘I can’t wait to see everyone’s faces when they see him. I wonder what freaky character he’ll choose. I hope he embraces it.’

  Gem herself loved any opportunity to dress up. At her last birthday, she decided to have a superhero theme and went as Wonder Woman, complete with a red-and-gold corset and a shield. She looked awesome, but not quite as awesome as Dilly, who came as Catwoman in a shimmering bodysuit and mask that she’d made herself. Everybody loved her costume, apart from Gem, who’d hated the attention that Dilly was getting. For the next week or so, she’d hardly spoken to Dilly, who got more and more upset and couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong. I’d wanted to go as Girl 38, complete with wild, combed-back hair, a bow and arrow, and long, silver moon boots. But nobody would know who I was, so I chose Batgirl instead.

  We agreed that we’d wait until just before the last lesson to leave the letter on Julius’s desk – that way, we’d minimise the chance of him speaking to anyone about it.

  The envelope was hidden in the pocket of my blazer. I kept putting my hand in to check that it was still there, paranoid that I’d dropped it. I couldn’t concentrate on anything that day, not even Girl 38. The only thing looping through my mind was how much I didn’t want to be involved in the whole thing.

  We had a double period of history with Miss Seymour before lunch and Julius sat in the seat in front of us. Did he not realise how close he was getting to the enemy? I stared at the back of his head and wished that I could telepathically transmit a message to him, telling him to ignore the letter that he was about to receive and to steer as clear of Gem as he possibly could.

  ‘Right, everyone, we’re going to do an introduction to World War Two this term. We’ll begin by looking at the political situation in Europe in the late 1930s, which led to the start of the war in 1939, but before that, let’s brainstorm everything you know about the Second World War, because I’m sure that a lot of you will be quite well-informed on the subject already. Put up your hands and I’ll jot down any thoughts that you have.’

  History was Gem’s least favourite subject. She still did well at it – she did well in everything – but it didn’t interest her. ‘What’s the point of learning about the past?’ she said once when she was at mine for dinner. ‘It’s over and done with. It’s not like the exact same things are ever going to happen again. We should move on and start talking about stuff that might actually be useful to us in the future.’

  Dad had rolled his eyes. Then, even though I shot him a warning look, he said, ‘We’re constantly moving forward because of the past. It forms the ingredients of the future. We need to learn from our mistakes and our successes. Every single thing that we use today, from a tablet to a car, was invented and improved by people over the course of history through trial and error. We owe everything to our forefathers, Gem. We literally wouldn’t be here without them. And you want to write them off, just like that, because you’re bored by them?’

  I could tell that she hated being told off by Dad, but she pretended that she didn’t care by shrugging her shoulders.

  Today, with Miss Seymour, she was showing that she knew her stuff, but it was obvious that she was thinking about more exciting things. Further plans to get at Julius.

  ‘It lasted from 1939 to 1945,’ she said, with a mildly-bored expression on her face. ‘There were two opposing military alliances – the Allies and the Axis. Britain was on the Allied side and Hitler on the Axis side, along with Mussolini. The war involved more than thirty countries and it included the first use of nuclear weapons in history.’

  Gem continued to reel off the facts as if from an encyclopaedia, so rapidly that Miss Seymour could barely keep up with writing them on the board. Eventually, she stopped her halfway through a sentence and said, ‘Thank you, Gemma. Anyone else?’

  Julius raised his hand.

  �
�My great-grandfather was in the navy – he fought in the Battle of Narvik in 1940. We won that battle, but his best mate died when he was hit by a shell. He was sad about it for ages. He always told me how much he missed him, even though it was, like, eighty years ago.’

  ‘Yes, this is true,’ Miss Seymour agreed. ‘We must remember that while learning historical events and facts is important, it’s the human experiences that form them which are often the most fascinating. We’re lucky enough to have many recorded stories of World War Two survivors, and we’re organising a trip to the National Archives, where you’ll be able to do your own research into many incredible experiences. Julius, if your great-grandfather is feeling up to it, perhaps you could also record an interview with him, and we could play it to the class?’

  ‘Aye, I reckon he would have loved to do an interview,’ said Julius, grinning at the thought. ‘But he died three years ago now. I could tell you some of his stories, though – I’ve written ’em all down so that I don’t forget ’em.’

  I could see Gem scowling. ‘I’ve written ’em all down,’ she imitated under her breath in a Scottish accent. ‘What a wee creep.’

  ‘There’ll definitely be an opportunity for you to tell us more about him,’ Miss Seymour promised. ‘But today we’re going to talk about what led to the outbreak of war, and then I’m going to get you started on a project that we’ll be working on until half-term.’

  At the end of the lesson we were split into five groups, each of which would research a different Second-World-War topic. I could see Gem looking around to see who might join our foursome, when Miss Seymour started allocating everyone numbers.