‘This isn’t some Trinny and Susannah TV show, you know,’ I point out. ‘It might take longer than a week. We can’t just mess Emily around and then ditch her when we get bored. She’s got feelings.’
Shannon looks shocked. ‘I know that, Ginger,’ she says. ‘We wouldn’t just drop her, we’d stick with it until she was ready to go it alone. Like an injured animal, ready to be released back into the wild. I did that with a baby sparrow, once.’
‘It’s not quite the same thing,’ I say.
Shannon rolls her eyes. ‘Look, Ginger, you’re worried about her,’ she says. ‘And we can help, simple as that. I shouldn’t have called her a loser, OK – I’m sorry. But by the time we’ve finished with her, nobody will ever be able to call her a loser again. I want to help her, Ginger.’
Random acts of kindness, I think. What harm could it do? I look at Shannon, her face shining in the lamplight.
‘OK,’ I agree. ‘We’ll do it.’
‘Yay! We just need to make her see that weird isn’t good,’ Shannon says, switching off the lamp. ‘Help her to fit in.’
Silence settles over us, soft and warm, and I lie back, relaxing. I just hope I’m right about this – I hope Emily wants to be helped. I’m pretty sure she does. For years I was on the outside, a weirdo, a loser. It wasn’t a good place to be. Fitting in is better.
Then again, there could be some exceptions. I think of a boy in a black trilby hat and Converse trainers with trailing laces, a boy with laughing eyes and a crooked grin and hair that looks like it hasn’t seen a comb in months. I think of a ska band with only one member, of loud, laughing sax music that makes you want to dance.
Weird isn’t always bad.
I smile in the dark, cuddling into my duvet, and drift into sleep.
On Monday morning, the makeover begins. ‘We have to be careful about it,’ I warn Shannon. ‘We don’t want Emily to think she’s some kind of project… it’d hurt her feelings. We have to be subtle.’
Shannon laughs. I don’t think she has a subtle bone in her body.
‘Hey, Emily,’ she says as we file into maths. ‘Why don’t you sit with us today? We’ve got a spare place.’
Emily blinks. ‘Oh… OK!’ She slides into a seat between Shannon and me, beaming. Even before the lesson begins, I can sense Shannon studying her with narrowed eyes.
‘You could have really nice hair,’ she announces, and Emily looks confused. Her hair is lank and greasy, drooping down over her shoulders like rats’ tails. ‘You just need to make an effort. What shampoo do you use?’
‘Not sure,’ Emily falters. ‘Mum gets it from the supermarket.’
Shannon frowns. ‘Never economize on essentials,’ she counsels. ‘Always buy a brand name. You need to spend a bit to get the best shampoo for your hair type. Yours is oily, right? How often d’you wash it?’
Emily looks flustered. ‘Um… every few days,’ she says, and Shannon shakes her head.
‘You need to do it every morning,’ she instructs. ‘And don’t forget to condition, but only on the ends because your hair’s so greasy.’
‘Every morning?’ Emily argues. ‘I wouldn’t have time.’
‘Get up early,’ I suggest. ‘That’s what we do. Just wash and blow-dry and straighten your hair… it wouldn’t take more than an hour and a half.’
‘I don’t even have straighteners,’ Emily says, horrified.
‘Oh, just ask your mum,’ Shannon says breezily. ‘She’d want you to look your best, wouldn’t she?’
‘Well, yes, but–’
‘Of course, if you had your hair cut, it’d be even easier to look after,’ Shannon sweeps on. ‘A jaw-length cut, asymmetrical, with plenty of layers to give it body. Perhaps some blonde streaks to liven it up…’
‘I don’t think…’
‘No, you don’t need to,’ Shannon grins. ‘Leave it to us, Emily. We’ll do the thinking for you.’
There’s a sudden ear-splitting crash as Mr Kelly slams the big whiteboard ruler down on the desk in front of us. ‘So sorry, girls,’ he says pleasantly. ‘Not interrupting, am I? If I were you, Emily, I’d stick to algebra and give the blonde streaks a miss.’
Emily swallows hard, bends her head over her maths textbook and doesn’t look up again all lesson.
You don’t argue with Shannon, though. By Friday, the afternoon of the English trip, Emily has switched to an upmarket shampoo and started washing her hair daily. Her mum has agreed to fund a haircut, and an appointment has been made for Saturday morning at the salon where Shannon’s cousin Lauren works.
‘We’ll come with you,’ Shannon insists. ‘You might chicken out on your own, and ask for a trim instead. We’ll meet at eleven, outside The Dancing Cat cafe.’
Emily nods, looking shell-shocked. She’s looked that way all week.
‘Emily reminds me of this doll I got for Christmas, when I was five,’ Shannon whispers, as we pile on to one of the minibuses and bag a seat together. ‘It was one of those cheap versions of a Barbie, you know? The hair was all thin and wispy and the face was too smiley, too bright. The clothes were like something your grandma might make–’
‘Shannon!’ I hiss. ‘Shhh! She’ll hear!’
Emily slips into the seat in front, clutching her copy of Romeo and Juliet. Mr Hunter does a quick head count and gets into the driver’s seat. ‘Seat belts on, kids,’ he calls. ‘Off we go!’ The minibus shudders to life.
I glance out of the window towards the second minibus, being driven by Miss King, one of the librarians. Sam Taylor is sitting in a window seat. He’s wearing dark glasses today, as well as the trilby hat, and I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or not. Then he grins and tips his hat, and my cheeks flame pink.
The minibus pulls away.
‘Anyhow, this doll,’ Shannon goes on, taking her voice down a notch. ‘It was rubbish. But you know what? I fixed it up! I cut its hair and dyed it red with poster paints, added eyeshadow and lipstick with my felt pens, and made new clothes from my mum’s scrap fabric box. It was soooo much fun!’
‘Don’t tell me,’ I guess. ‘That doll ended up being your favourite!’
Shannon frowns. ‘Well, no, actually,’ she says. ‘I mean, it was still a cheap, yucky doll, wasn’t it? Only with stiff, painted hair and clothes stuck together with Sellotape. I chucked it away.’
‘Shannon!’
She just laughs. ‘Don’t take everything so seriously, Ginger! I was five then… what did you expect? I’m much better at makeovers now. Emily’s going to be fine.’
I bite my lip and hope she’s right.
The film isn’t as dull and dusty as you’d think, although Jas says the gang fights aren’t gory enough and there is no sign of under-age you-know-what. ‘I bin conned,’ he says to Mr Hunter. ‘It was OK, man, but I seen worse…’
‘Yeah?’ Mr Hunter asks. ‘It’s pretty hard-hitting stuff. Why don’t you try reading it?’
‘Oh, man, I don’t read,’ Jas whines. ‘You telling me I have to read it to get to the really juicy bits?’
Mr Hunter produces a dog-eared paperback of the play from his pocket, and Jas takes it, uncertainly. ‘Try page 23,’ he suggests. ‘Big fight scene.’
Jas sits down on the cinema steps and starts reading, his eyebrows furrowed, his lips moving as he follows the words. A couple of kids take sneaky pictures of him with their mobiles, because Jas Kapoor has never been seen reading before, let alone reading Shakespeare.
‘Mr Hunter is a genius,’ Shannon says. ‘Seriously.’
On the step beneath Jas, Sam Taylor has taken off one black Converse trainer, revealing a black-and-white striped sock. He is writing on the trainer with a white Tippex pen. I can’t see too clearly, but it seems to say Ska Tissue, along with a random scattering of musical notes.
He looks over, catching my eye. ‘Hey, Gingersnaps,’ he says.
I smile and turn away, but it’s too late. Shannon has seen. ‘Not talking to your boyfriend today?’ she teases. ‘Yo
u’re so cruel. It’s Romeo and Juliet all over again.’
‘I didn’t know he was your boyfriend,’ Emily pipes up.
‘He’s not. Shannon’s just trying to be funny.’
Shannon laughs, blowing me a kiss, and I smile in spite of myself.
Mr Hunter counts everyone, gives a thumbs-up to Miss King and tells us it’s time to go back to the minibuses. Sam leans down to put on his trainer, but Jas Kapoor grabs it suddenly, chucking it through the air to his mates. Sam stands up, startled, one shoe off and one shoe on.
‘Oy, Jas!’ he yells, but Jas Kapoor and his friends are halfway to the car park, playing a game of catch with the trainer. Sam has no option but to trail along behind.
‘New fashion, Sam?’ Shannon asks sweetly, and he just smiles.
We get on to the minibus, and Shannon grabs a seat at the front, next to Josh Jones. ‘Nothing personal,’ she says to me. ‘It’s just the view’s better, from this seat!’
I follow her gaze, and surprise surprise, she’s sitting right behind Mr Hunter. ‘What about me?’ I ask, mildly hacked off.
‘Sit with Emily,’ Shannon says dismissively. ‘Talk to her about… oh, I dunno, haircuts or make-up or fashion, whatever. Get her to practise her conversation skills.’
I stomp to the back, where Emily has ended up, and sit down with a sigh. Some kids swap buses at the last minute, and Sam Taylor, keen to stay close to his shoe, gets on to ours. He raises his hat to me, grinning, and flops into a seat halfway down.
The bus jolts forward.
‘Sure you don’t like Sam Taylor?’ Emily wants to know.
‘No way!’ I protest. ‘He’s just… weird!’
‘I think he’s nice,’ Emily says, and my heart twists inside me. I don’t want Emily to like Sam.
‘I don’t really know him,’ I admit.
‘Well, I don’t really, but I did sit by him in English until you and Shannon asked me to sit with you,’ Emily explains. ‘He’s really musical – he plays the saxophone, the harmonica and the clarinet, and he’s living with his dad on a narrowboat down by Candy’s Bridge.’
‘What – he lives on a narrowboat?’
‘I know. Brilliant, huh?’ Emily says.
I’m not sure if living on a narrowboat is brilliant or not. I know that Shannon wouldn’t think so.
Sam’s trainer swoops through the air above our heads, crossing from one side of the bus to another. I wonder why Mr Hunter doesn’t do something, but of course, he’s driving the minibus – he probably hasn’t even noticed.
‘C’mon, Jas,’ Sam says wearily. ‘Joke’s over, mate. Give me the shoe back.’
But Jas never knows when to stop. He slides open the little window at the back of the bus and sticks his arm out, dangling Sam’s trainer by the laces. ‘Gonna make me?’ he asks, grinning.
Sam Taylor stands up to rescue his shoe, and Mr Hunter yells at him to sit down. Half the bus dissolve into giggles.
Emily rolls her eyes. She turns round to Jas, her face stern. ‘Don’t be such a bully,’ she says. ‘Give him the shoe.’
Jas just laughs.
‘You say something,’ Emily tells me. ‘He might listen to you.’
‘Why me?’ I argue. ‘I don’t even know Sam Taylor…’
Emily gives me a long, sad-eyed look. It’s a look that says I should know better, because I’ve been there, been bullied, been laughed at. Can’t she see that’s exactly the reason I have to keep my head down?
‘You can’t just ignore it,’ Emily says. ‘You have to do something. Stuff like this happened to you, Ginger.’
‘That was a long time ago,’ I say in a small voice.
Emily shakes her head, like I’m not the person she thought I was. Well, maybe I’m not.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ I huff. I turn round to face Jas, just in time to see him lob the black Converse trainer out of the window. It flies through the bright September air in a perfect arc, disappearing into a hedge.
Oops.
I wake at dawn, feeling guilty. Images of yesterday run through my head. Sam Taylor stopping the minibus so he could search for the missing trainer in the hedge. Sam climbing back on to the bus, still shoeless, to face a telling off from Mr Hunter, who seemed to blame him for the whole thing.
‘Ouch,’ Shannon had said, as we watched Sam smile and shrug and head for home. ‘What’ll his family think when he turns up wearing only one shoe? That’s weird, even for Sam Taylor.’
We’d all laughed, even Emily, but it doesn’t seem so funny now. I could have stopped it, maybe. I could, at least, have tried.
I wish Sam Taylor didn’t wear a crazy hat, or write graffiti on his jeans and shoes, or play the sax in the school corridor during lesson times. Maybe, then, he’d fit in a bit better. He wouldn’t be a loner, a weirdo, and I wouldn’t feel so mixed up, so confused.
I could fall for Sam Taylor, if he weren’t so weird.
Then again, maybe it’s the weird stuff I like? Sam Taylor is different from anyone else I ever met. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, does it?
I just wish he’d found his shoe. I could have found it for him, I swear, if only I’d had the courage to get off the bus yesterday and help. After all, I saw Jas fling the wretched thing away, watched the shoe flip over and over, laces trailing, as it curved towards the hedge. There was a big, messy bush with white flowers on it, sprawling out on to the pavement, and somebody’s recycling bin left stranded on the pavement. Did Sam know to look in that exact place? Jas Kapoor wasn’t about to tell him, was he, and me – well, I wanted to keep my head down.
Guilt sticks in my throat like a sliver of glass, and I can’t quite shift it.
I get out of bed and creep through to the bathroom, wash quickly and fling on old jeans and a skinny, long-sleeved top. It’s only just past seven, and the house is silent as I edge down the stairs. I leave a note to say I’ve gone cycling, then fetch my bike from the shed and wheel it down towards the road.
The sun is warm on my back as I ride, one of those bright Indian summer mornings you get just when everyone’s gone back to school and it’s too late to do anyone any good. My hair streams out behind me like a banner. The streets are almost empty apart from a milk float, a couple of posties and the occasional jogger.
I cycle past the school and on towards town, until I find the road where Jas threw the trainer. I slow then, and dawdle along the hedgerows until I find the bush with the white flowers. The recycling box has disappeared, but I’m sure this is the place. I peer into the hedge, shake the bush. White petals drift to the pavement like snow, but I cannot see Sam’s shoe. I find a little wooden gate and push it open, creakily, stepping into the garden. There’s nobody about. There in the corner, in the middle of a jewel-bright flower bed, is a wilted black Converse trainer covered in white grafitti.
I pick it up by the toe, scanning the white grafitti. Ska Tissue, it says, along with a whole crowd of musical notes. The door to the house swings open and a little old lady in a pink dressing gown appears on the step. ‘Sorry,’ I say brightly. ‘Just getting my shoe…’
She blinks, bewildered, as I back out of the gate with the trainer, tie the laces together and hang it over the handlebars of my bike. She gives me a little wave as I cycle away.
I have rescued Sam’s lost shoe, but I haven’t a clue what to do with it. Leave it on top of his locker at school? Wrap it in newspaper and pass it to him, under the desk, in maths or English class? Yeah, right. If Shannon found out I’d never hear the last of it.
I could post it, maybe, only I don’t have an address. But according to Emily, Sam lives on a narrowboat near Candy’s Bridge. If I cycled down to the canal, I could find it, leave the shoe on deck and creep away before anyone saw me. Well, maybe.
I head out of town and down towards Candy’s Bridge, a quiet stretch of canal just five minutes’ ride from where I live. We used to have picnics there, sometimes, when I was little. I wheel the bike down on to the towpath and look around. T
he bridge is old, made of grey stone starred with bright discs of yellow lichen. The canal stretches away to the left and right of it, fringed with wildflowers and tall clumps of rushes and irises.
I turn away from town and push my bike along the overgrown towpath. It’s like a different world, a million miles away from the mess and hassle of the streets. Beside the towpath, a tumbledown wall divides the canal from scrubby woodland that slopes steeply down towards the railway line. When you look through the trees, across the valley, you can see the town beyond, spread out on the hillside, the golden stone of the crescents glowing in the morning sun.
Everything is quiet, except for the soft clicking of the bicycle wheels, the rustle of the trees above me. Bramble bushes laden with fat, shiny blackberries throw spiky tendrils out to snag my arms and legs, and butterflies flit in and out of the late summer flowers.
There are seven or eight narrowboats moored up ahead. The first one, a ramshackle boat so old it looks like the ghost ship from Pirates of the Caribbean, is the only one that shows any sign of life. A wiry old guy with a white beard and hair scraped back in a ponytail is eating cornflakes on the roof of it, watching me as I approach.
‘Morning,’ he says.
‘Morning. Do you know… I’m looking for a narrowboat where a boy called Sam Taylor lives,’ I say.
The old man frowns. ‘Nobody of that name along here,’ he replies. ‘There’s a boat moored up on its own, though, a bit further along. Appeared two weeks back. Two blokes… well, one’s just a kid, really. Could that be who you’re looking for?’
‘Could be,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you!’
I walk past the row of narrowboats, the black Converse trainer swinging, and then the towpath curves round, and I have to duck to avoid the branches of a willow tree. My eyes widen and I stop short, heart thumping.
A small red-gold fox is standing in the grass up ahead of me. I have never seen a fox before, and it feels like something special, something magical. I’m shocked at how small and bright and skinny it is, its coat shining like copper, its chin and chest and the tip of its tail pure white. I let my bike fall softly against the tree, sink down to my knees among the flowers.
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