‘Nice one!’ Shannon says. ‘So… we’re making chocolate cake?’
‘Something better,’ Emily explains. ‘More personal. Gingersnap cookies!’
I laugh. ‘You’re crazy, Emily Croft,’ I say. ‘Crazy but cool.’
The three of us set to work, measuring out flour and eggs and butter and sugar, tipping in ground ginger and mixing the lot up.
Shannon frowns. ‘The trouble with recipes is that they’re so… predictable,’ she says.
‘That’s the whole point,’ Emily tells her.
‘I know, I know. When I was little, I used to bake cupcakes with my mum, sometimes,’ Shannon says. ‘It was a laugh. We didn’t plan ahead, so we never had the right ingredients… we’d just add in random stuff, like Smarties or strawberries or chocolate chips. The mixture was different every time, but it always worked out.’
‘OK,’ I tell her. ‘Surprise us!’
Shannon opens a cupboard, roots about and finds chopped apricots, glacé cherries, pickled onions. ‘Not the onions,’ Emily protests, but Shannon just laughs and chops them up, shaking a little of each ingredient into the mix. Shannon may be hard work at times, but she is never, ever boring.
I roll out the dough while Emily digs out cookie cutters shaped like hearts and stars and flowers, and together we cut the dough and lift the shapes on to a greased baking tray.
The flat fills with the warm, spicy-rich smell of baking, and we flop down on to the sofa, grinning. My smile fades fast when I see the abandoned photo album sitting on the coffee table right in front of us, though. I want to grab it, hide it, burn it – anything to stop Shannon seeing the pictures inside. I can’t, of course.
Panic fills me. Shannon leans forward, scooping up the photo album. I’ve tried so hard to keep the truth about my past from Shannon, and now she has it in her hands, flipping through the pages carelessly. ‘Oh, Em, you were such a geek!’ she says, blind to Emily’s embarrassment. ‘Good job I took you in hand! Wow… Ginger, is that you?’
Shannon is looking at the snapshot of my eleventh birthday, at the ice rink. ‘Sweet,’ she says, and I can’t tell whether she means it or not. ‘So, you two were friends back then?’
Emily glances at me. She has kept my secret, the way I asked her to, although she never understood why I was so ashamed, so scared to let Shannon know the way things were. Emily is a great believer in being honest, open, truthful. Me, I’ve been a great believer in hiding, pretending, acting out a role… trouble is, it’s a role I’m finding it harder and harder to play.
I told Sam Taylor about the way things were for me in primary school, after all. He didn’t laugh. He listened and held my hand and said all the right things. Right now, I have to be brave and come clean with Shannon too – there will never be a better chance to do it. Maybe, like Emily once said, it could even bring us closer, help her to understand me more. I take a deep breath.
‘We were never really friends,’ I hear myself say. ‘Emily and Meg were great, but… well, I guess I was a bit of a loner in primary school.’
Shannon is only half listening, but now I’ve started I can’t stop. ‘I was bullied,’ I rush on. ‘A lot, actually. I had no confidence, no friends. I was the furthest thing from cool you could ever imagine.’
Shannon looks at me steadily, her blue eyes unblinking. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, feeling, but my own heart begins to thump.
‘So?’ Shannon says. ‘So what?’
Relief floods my body. Shannon doesn’t care… she really doesn’t.
‘I kind of knew that, anyhow,’ she goes on. ‘At least, I guessed. That’s why I picked you out, that first day of term… I figured you could do with a friend!’
Relief floods my body and I’m laughing now, wondering why I ever doubted that Shannon would understand. She knew I needed a friend, so she picked me out… why did I ever imagine she’d judge me for the way things were back then? I turned my past into a secret, something dark and shameful, something to hide, but all the time I was worrying over nothing.
Shannon doesn’t hold my hand, like Sam, or tell me she’s sorry about the way things were, like Emily, but that’s OK. I don’t expect that, not from Shannon. Being accepted – that’s enough.
Later, we’re curled up on the sofa, a tangle of legs and arms and fluffy cushions, chilling out and eating cookies. They are gorgeous, sweet and spicy and crumbly, and, when you find one with a bit of onion in, unexpected too. It’s not as bad as you’d think, seriously.
I’m wondering if friendship is a bit like that too. Adding a new person to the mixture has stirred things up, changed the flavour, but still, it could turn out really well. Couldn’t it?
The magazine is almost finished. Page after page is handed in, designed, pasted up and placed in the folder ready to be photocopied. The last few ads are slotted in, and even my problem page, Sorted, is finished and done with.
In Friday’s English lesson, Mr Hunter shows us the cover, a cool shot of Shannon and Andy, with Sarah’s quirky lettering across the top. He has taken it to a copy shop in town and run off 500 copies – all that’s left now is to copy the inside pages, then put the whole thing together.
‘That’ll take most of next week,’ Mr Hunter says. ‘We’ll work at lunchtimes and after school as well as in class, so we’re ready to go on sale the following Monday!’
‘Awesome,’ Jas says.
‘We’ll sell the mag all around the school,’ Josh explains. ‘The teams are all organized. We’re putting posters up now to build up a bit of a buzz. We have orders already… I think we’ll do OK!’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Mr Hunter agrees. ‘I’m proud of you all. You’ve worked so hard on this – and I know you’ve learnt a lot too. I hope it’s shown you that English can be fun!’
‘It’s been cool,’ Shannon says. ‘That’s not something I’d normally say about any lesson at Kinnerton High, seriously! I guess I’m proud of us too.’
‘We should celebrate,’ Jas suggests.
‘We totally should,’ Shannon echoes. ‘We could throw a launch party! We could hold it in the school hall, invite everyone, hire a band, call it the S’cool Dance…’
Mr Hunter looks a little alarmed. ‘I’m not sure if that would be possible,’ he says. ‘Things like that take quite a lot of organizing… perhaps if we’d thought of it sooner…’
Shannon pouts. ‘Too bad. Just a small party, then, for the magazine team.’ Suddenly her face lights up. ‘Hold on… that’s exactly what we’ll do. It’s my birthday, a week on Saturday. I’ll be thirteen. I bet my parents will let me have a party, especially if I explain about the magazine. I am the editor, after all. We can make it a double celebration! My house, Saturday, OK? Everyone’s welcome!’
‘Yeah?’ Jas asks. ‘That’d be cool, Shannon!’
‘We deserve it, don’t we?’ she shrugs. ‘We will do, anyhow, by the time we’re finished sorting and stapling those mags! You’ll all be there, right? Open house!’
A ragged cheer goes up as the class signal their approval, all except for Sam who is sitting in the corner, polishing his saxophone. He catches my eye and grins, rolling his eyes a little.
‘A party?’ Josh is saying. ‘Count me in, and Sarah and Robin. Thanks, Shannon!’
‘We’ll be there,’ Faiza and Lisa add.
‘And us. Good plan, Shannon!’
Shannon turns to Mr Hunter, treating him to her megawatt smile. ‘You too, Sir!’ she says casually.
Mr Hunter laughs. ‘Well, I’d like to, of course,’ he says. ‘I’m just not sure if I can make it…’
‘Sir, you have to!’ Shannon insists. ‘Without you, there wouldn’t be a magazine!’
‘You’re the main man!’ Jas agrees. ‘You have to help us celebrate!’
‘Please, Sir, you can’t let us down!’
Mr Hunter holds up his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘OK, OK!’ he says. ‘I’ll be there, even if it’s just for a little while. I promise.’
> My eyes widen. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Mr Hunter to come to Shannon’s party. Shannon Kershaw always gets what she wants, and right now she wants Mr Hunter. Anything could happen. She might get him playing spin the bottle, or drag him into the garden to look at the stars, or just haul him up to slow dance to Britney Spears. Scary.
The buzzer sounds for lunchtime. Mr Hunter wants to go through a few last-minute magazine details with Shannon and Emily, so I mooch off to the canteen alone. Sam Taylor is ahead of me in the queue, carrying a dish of sponge pudding and custard with a couple of fish fingers balanced on top. It’s a good job they don’t sell gherkins in the school canteen, or he’d probably have added a couple of those too.
‘Didn’t anybody ever tell you that first course and pudding are usually served on separate plates?’ I say, slipping into a seat next to him with my baked potato. ‘You are a strange boy, Sam Taylor.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’ he wants to know.
‘I don’t know,’ I answer honestly. ‘I like you anyway, I guess.’
Sam grins. ‘I guess. You’re sitting with me in the school canteen, in broad daylight. Your friends could walk in any minute. I’m impressed. Does this mean we’re dating now?’
‘No, it doesn’t! I’m just being friendly. If Shannon comes in… well, so what? She doesn’t own me.’
‘No?’ Sam asks, and I can’t quite meet his gaze. The truth is, if Shannon comes in I’ll probably duck under the table or pretend Sam sat next to me instead of the other way round. Strange boys and cool girls just don’t mix, according to my best friend. Me, I’m not so sure.
‘So, Shannon’s throwing a party,’ Sam says, taking a bite of fish finger and custard. ‘Think I’ll be getting an invite?’
‘Everyone’s welcome, she said so,’ I point out, although I’m pretty sure that Shannon’s version of ‘everyone’ doesn’t include Sam. ‘You didn’t look too impressed, though, back in class.’
Sam stops chewing and grins, tipping back his air-force cap. ‘Well, Shannon’s not my favourite person – and obviously, I’m not hers. I could probably live without the party. How about you, though, Ginger? Do you want me to come?’ His brown eyes hold mine.
‘Er… well…’
I try to picture Shannon’s face if I turn up with Sam. It’s not a good thought. Then again, if Sam just appeared, Shannon need never know… and even she wouldn’t actually turf him out, surely. Would she?
‘I’ll be at Shannon’s anyway, helping her to get things ready,’ I explain. ‘I guess I could see you there, though…’
Sam leans back in his chair, grinning.
‘Don’t fight it, Ginger. It’s destiny…’
Shannon probably has the coolest parents on the entire planet. They agree to the S’cool celebration party without a murmur. Best of all, they are not going to sit on the sofa making small talk and passing round the sausages on sticks, they are going into town to have dinner with some old friends, leaving us to party on our own.
I can’t imagine my parents doing that in a million years, but then Shannon is an only child with a habit of getting her own way.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she says, as we loaf around her room at the Saturday sleepover. ‘I’m going to be a teenager at last, and they’re finally, finally treating me like one!’
‘You’re so lucky!’ Emily sighs. ‘Your parents are so… laid-back!’
‘They trust me. I mean, they’ve set a few rules… no more than fifteen, twenty people. No drinking, no smoking, and we’ve to keep the music down so that the neighbours don’t complain.’
‘No problem,’ says Emily. ‘We can be sensible.’
‘Sensible?’ Shannon echoes, like she never heard the word before. ‘C’mon! I’ll stick to the rules, but who wants a “sensible” party? We’re going to have fun!’
So we plan the party, everything from pizza and profiteroles and fruit punch to music. Shannon’s getting a new dress and boots for her birthday, and we agree to come over here to get ready together. We’ll help decorate the house and organize the food, then stay over and clear up again next day.
We make CDs of party mix stuff, then design party invites on Shannon’s computer. ‘We don’t really need these, because everyone knows already,’ Shannon says, setting the printer to churn out twenty copies of the party invite. ‘But it looks so much better, doesn’t it? I can give one to Mr Hunter and a couple to Andy Collins and his friends…’
‘Don’t ask too many people,’ Emily says anxiously. ‘Your parents said twenty max, remember?’
‘Relax!’ Shannon scoffs. ‘You always ask more people than you really want, at a party. Not everyone will turn up, will they?’
Well, that’s something I know about, obviously. Still, I have a feeling that Shannon’s party won’t be just the three of us, sat on a sofa picking at a bowl of crisps.
‘Andy Collins will come, for sure,’ Emily says. ‘You’ve got him eating out of your hand, Shannon. I bet he asks you out!’
Shannon just shrugs. ‘Andy’s OK, but he’s kind of immature. The boy I’m interested in isn’t like that…’
I blink. ‘The “boy” you’re interested in isn’t a boy at all!’ I argue. ‘Get serious, Shannon. He’s way too old for you!’
‘Who is?’ Emily asks, baffled. ‘Andy? Age shouldn’t matter!’
‘Not Andy,’ Shannon huffs. ‘And age does matter, although you’re right, it shouldn’t. It’s crazy – look at Romeo and Juliet. She was only a year or so older than me, and nobody said that she was too young. But if I say I fancy Mr Hunter – Steve – everyone thinks it’s a joke!’
‘I wish it was,’ I say.
‘Mr Hunter is a teacher,’ Emily points out. ‘And we’re just kids. He’s off limits.’
Shannon rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know that,’ she sighs. ‘Forget I said anything. You wouldn’t understand.’
The trouble is, I think I’m starting to understand only too well.
We’re all dressed up, Shannon in her new spike-heeled boots and scarily short dress. Emily has teamed her red T-shirt with one of Shannon’s minis, and I’m in leggings and an emerald-green tunic dress. Our make-up is bright and glittery, our hair is sleek and glossy. We’re just about bursting with excitement.
‘What about my prezzies?’ Shannon asks, like a kid on Christmas morning. ‘What did you get me?’
Emily hands over a parcel wrapped in tissue paper, and Shannon tears it open to reveal a skinny black sequinned scarf. ‘Love it!’ she declares, looping it round her neck like a choker. ‘Thanks, Em!’
Then she rattles the little box with the heart necklace, peels back the gift wrap and prises open the box. I wait to see her face light up, see her grin and laugh and hand over half of the necklace. She raises an eyebrow, smiles a little. It isn’t quite the reaction I was hoping for.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘One of those necklaces you break in half, right?’
‘A friends’ necklace,’ I say, but my voice sounds a bit wobbly. ‘You keep one half and give half to a friend.’
I can see what Shannon thinks of the necklace… that it’s cheesy, childish and uncool. I must have been crazy to ever imagine she’d like it.
‘Nice,’ she says. ‘Um… who wants the other bit?’
My heart twists inside me.
‘Ginger, of course,’ Emily says quickly. ‘You two are best friends!’
‘Yeah,’ Shannon says. ‘I suppose. Doesn’t seem fair on you, though, Em. What if I give you half each? You’re both my mates, yeah?’
Emily shoots me an anguished look. ‘Shannon!’ she says. ‘You can’t give both halves away! That’s not how it works!’
Mr and Mrs Kershaw call up from downstairs, to say they’re about to leave, and Shannon shrugs, dumping the necklace on her dresser. ‘Coming!’ she yells, heading out on to the landing. Emily throws me a sympathetic look and follows, and I’m left alone in the bedroom with the scrunched-up wrapping paper and the unwanted present gl
inting at me.
Shannon is trampling all over my heart in her cool, spike-heeled boots, and there’s nothing I can do. Our friendship is slipping through my fingers, no matter how tightly I try to hang on.
There’s a burst of laughter from the stairway, and I remember Shannon’s accusation that Emily is more fun than I am, these days. I won’t, I can’t, let that be true. I dredge up a smile from somewhere and follow Shannon and Emily downstairs.
The living room is strung with fairy lights and draped with streamers, the table heaped with pizza, crisps, profiteroles and trifle. A huge bowl of punch made from lemonade, orange juice and about a million chopped up strawberries sits in the middle. One of our dance CDs is playing and Shannon’s birthday cards are displayed across the mantlepiece.
Shannon’s mum and dad pull on their jackets and take a last look around. ‘How many people are coming, exactly?’ Mrs Kershaw asks.
‘Oh… fifteen, maybe?’ Shannon says.
I think it could be a few more than that.
‘Well. Have a lovely time, dear! Remember, we’re just ten minutes away. Ring if you need us – I’ll leave my mobile on.’
‘Mum!’ Shannon says. ‘We’ll be fine!’
‘Yes, don’t fuss,’ Mr Kershaw says, checking his watch. ‘Let’s go.’
They wave and grin and walk down the path, and we watch from behind the red velvet curtains until they’re out of sight.
‘Do you think Mr Hunter will come?’ Shannon asks.
‘D’you think anyone will?’ Emily worries.
I decide to push the whole necklace disaster to the back of my mind. I’ll show Shannon that I can be fun too. I grab her hand and pull her into the middle of the carpet. ‘Turn the music up,’ I tell Emily. ‘Let’s get this party started!’
We’re dancing around like three mad things when the doorbell rings and the first guests arrive. Josh Jones and Robin West come in with cards and cans of Irn-Bru, then Lisa, Faiza and Sarah, and Jas Kapoor with his camera, taking paparazzi shots as we squash on to the sofa, eating pizza and sipping fruit punch.
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