That’s when Shannon’s mum and dad appear, white-faced. They have seen the squad car, the policemen, the gathered neighbours, Andy and Jas and the rest of us, but their eyes are on Shannon, stranded on the doorstep, looking terrified. Silence descends on the darkened garden, if you can call it silence with the Marilyn Manson CD still bleating on in the background.
‘What on earth is going on?’
Shannon looks at her mum and dad for a long, painful moment, and everyone holds their breath. Then she opens her mouth and pukes all over her brand-new spike-heeled boots.
Shannon’s mum and dad are not happy, especially once they get into the house and see the trifle ground into the sheepskin rug and the pasta salad that has somehow found its way into the cutlery drawer. It’s a lot of damage to blame on one bottle of cider and a few beers, and sure enough, when Mr Kershaw checks the drinks cabinet, he finds it has been ransacked. The whisky, the vodka, even the cooking sherry have disappeared. No wonder that punch tasted funny.
Mr Hunter calls up a couple of taxis to take home the stragglers, paying the fares in advance. ‘What about you two?’ he asks Emily and me. ‘Do you have lifts arranged?’
‘We’re meant to be staying over,’ Emily says doubtfully. ‘Helping to clear up. Not sure if it’s such a great idea now.’
‘Maybe we could help with the worst of it, then order one last taxi,’ Mr Hunter suggests, peeling a pizza slice off the plasma screen TV.
In the kitchen, Shannon’s dad is getting angry, his voice building from a low rumble into something close to a roar. I scrape trifle off the rug and try to ignore the noise from the kitchen.
‘You stupid, stupid, stupid girl!’ Mr Kershaw is yelling. ‘This party is a disaster – a joke. Just like you, Shannon. You’re… you’re a waste of space!’
Emily shoots me a terrified look. Parents get mad and say things they don’t mean, but things like that – well, they’re the kind of things you don’t want your friends to overhear. Or your teachers.
The coolest parents in the world? Maybe not.
Mr Hunter plugs in the vacuum cleaner and the row fades out beneath the hum of the engine. Emily scrubs at a Coke stain on the carpet and I discover the missing telephone, floating in the fish tank along with a pizza crust and a whole bunch of curious goldfish.
Eventually, all traces of trifle, puke and profiterole have been scoured away. We’ve done as much as we can, and there’s silence in the kitchen now as the sound of the Hoover fades. Shannon’s mum brings through a tray of tea and biscuits. ‘Jim gets a little bit cross at times,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t mean it, not really.’
‘No, of course…’ Mr Hunter looks embarrassed, flipping open his mobile and tapping in the taxi number. ‘Well. I’d better get this lot delivered home and leave you to it…’
‘I’ll just get my jacket,’ I say, abandoning the tea. I wander through to the darkened kitchen. It’s still a bomb site, of course, and at first I don’t even notice Shannon, a pale ghost leaning against the sink. She looks up, her face streaked with tears and mascara, and my heart flips over.
‘Hey, Shannon,’ I whisper. ‘You OK?’
She smiles in the half-light, a shaky smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘What do you think?’ she asks.
I go to put my arms round her, but Shannon pushes me away. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispers. ‘Get away from me, Ginger. This is all your fault. How could you? You just had to spoil it for me… you had to call my parents!’
My mouth has fallen open, but my tongue feels tangled, heavy.
‘I… I had to!’ I argue. ‘You must see that. I was trying to help!’
‘Well, thanks a bunch, pal,’ Shannon snarls. ‘You’ve made this a real birthday to remember. You always know best, don’t you? You’d never fall for a teacher, and of course you’d never drink or flirt or play your music too loud! Little Miss Perfect, with your geeky, freaky, sax-playing boyfriend–’
‘Sam’s not…’ I start to say, then wonder why I’m still pretending, still trying to please Shannon. After all, when has she ever cared about pleasing me?
‘Stick with the losers, Ginger,’ she snarls. ‘They’re much more your style.’
‘Sam’s not a loser,’ I hear myself argue. ‘He’s my friend, and yeah, maybe something more than that. So what? He’s cool and kind and fun to be with, and that’s more than you are these days!’
I’m shaking with anger, with shock. I’ve never stood up to Shannon before, not like this, not even that awful day outside The Dancing Cat. Maybe I should have.
I’m sick of being told what to do and who to like. I want to take Sam’s advice and grab each day, make the most of it, starting now. I just hope it’s not too late.
‘I asked Sam to the party because you said everyone was welcome,’ I go on. ‘But you were never going to be happy about Sam being here, because he’s just about the one boy in the world who doesn’t jump when you snap your fingers. You can’t handle that, can you, Shannon? That he likes me and I like him, and there’s nothing you can do about it…’
Shannon just smiles, shaking her head slowly as though I am very, very stupid. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘If he likes you so much, where is he now, Ginger? Maybe I asked him to leave, but you let him go without a fight. You made your choice. You’ve lost him, and it’s nobody’s fault but your own.’
Tears of hurt and injustice sting my eyes, and a ragged, burning anger boils up inside me. I can’t remember why I ever thought I liked Shannon, because right now I hate her, more than I’ve ever hated anyone. My hand flies up to slap her pink, smug cheek, but she grabs my wrist and pushes me away, laughing in my face.
‘You’ll get over him,’ she says.
I wake late on Sunday, with an ache where my heart should be.
I realized last night that I’m sick of pretending to be something, someone, I’m not. I don’t want to be cool, I don’t want to be perfect or popular. The price is too high. I’d rather just be me – the real me, with real friends. Friends like Emily… and Sam.
I thought he believed in me, I thought he understood, but when it came to the crunch, I let him down. I let myself be pushed around by Shannon one time too many, forgot that even a weird, wild, wonderful boy like Sam has feelings. I’ve lost him, and that hurts, more than losing Shannon, more than anything.
Sometimes, you have to lose something before you realize just how special it was. Maybe it’s too late, but I can’t let Sam go without a fight. I care about him way too much to let him walk out of my life. If I can just see him, talk to him, explain… well, maybe he’ll listen, understand. I need a second chance. I’m hoping, really hoping, that Sam will give me that chance.
Riding down towards Candy’s Bridge, the breeze ruffles my hair and makes my cheeks tingle. The sun is shining, but there’s a coolness, a crispness all around, and I know that summer is over. I’m impatient now, keen to see Sam and try to clear the air, start from scratch. I can see why he was mad last night, but he’ll have calmed down now, surely?
When I reach the bridge, I wheel my bike down into the woods beside the railway line and prop it out of sight, against a tree. I clamber over the wall and walk along past the willow tree, looking for the Cadenza.
I stop, frozen, on the towpath. My heart has started a wild, hammering beat inside me. There is nothing but a long sweep of dark canal where the narrowboat once was. It’s gone.
The man with the white beard from the boat nearest the bridge is cycling along the towpath, whistling. ‘OK, love?’ he asks, and I realize how strange I must look, standing in the middle of the towpath, wide-eyed, lost.
‘I’m looking for the Cadenza,’ I say. ‘Did they say where they were going, or how long they’d be? Did they leave a message at all?’
‘No, no message,’ the man says. ‘They headed off first thing this morning, as soon as it was light. I assumed they were just off to empty the tanks, get water and fuel, but they’d have been back by now… looks like they’ve just moved
on. Sorry.’
The man cycles away.
I take a deep breath in. Dad’s contract is only temporary… we move around a lot… it’s hard to make plans…
Sam wouldn’t go for good, though, I know he wouldn’t, without telling me… would he? After last night, I just don’t know any more. I made the wrong choice, turned my back on him just because Shannon snapped her fingers and asked me to. Shame floods my body, seeping like a poison into every part of me. Why would he tell me? I’m the girl who was too scared to follow my heart, to admit, even to myself, how much he meant to me.
I guess it’s too late now, but suddenly I want Sam to know I was here, that I care. I scrabble in my shoulder bag for paper and pen, and find a little notebook and a make-up bag with eyeliner, shadow, lipgloss and nail scissors inside. I take the scissors out and tear out some pages from the notebook, snipping out letters and hanging them on the bramble bush behind me, piercing each letter with a thorn. Slowly, my message takes shape.
SAM TAYLOR WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?
Even as I watch, the breeze lifts the letters, tangling them, loosening them, and I have to walk away before the whole thing disintegrates in front of my eyes. I skirt round the wall and into the woods, heading for my bike, but instead of taking the handlebars I sink down on to the ground, slumping into a thick carpet of crispy golden leaves.
Tears mist my eyes and gather in my throat. I hug my legs, curling up like a child, trying to keep them at bay. I thought that these days I was too tough to cry, but I’m not, I’m really, really not. Lately, it seems to be all I can do.
I always thought I’d come a long way since my awful eleventh birthday party. I thought I’d shaken off the past, learnt to be cool and confident and popular, but all the time I was kidding myself. Now I’m back where I started, alone, the misfit kid who messes everything up and lets other people call the shots, control her life. I haven’t moved on at all.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath in.
There’s a rustle of leaves, the gentlest crackling of twigs, and before I can look up, something warm brushes against my arm. The fox is standing next to me, so close I can see the sun glinting on her coat, so close I can smell the thick, earthy smell of her. Her amber eyes shine just inches from me, unblinking.
My mouth falls open, and the breath catches in my throat. I’m smiling, a shaky smile, sure, but a real one. I reach a hand towards the fox, trembling a little.
Sam told me all about foxes, how shy they are around humans, how hard it is to get their trust… yet this fox looks fearless, curious, calm. Her ears twitch as she leans forward to sniff my hand with a moist nose, working out that I have no food to offer, nothing.
‘I didn’t bring anything for you,’ I say softly. ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t think. I came to see Sam, but he’s gone, and now I don’t know what to do…’
The fox blinks, tilting her head to one side, and then she takes a step towards me and pushes her pointed little face right into the tangled curtain of my hair, still sniffing. My heart is thumping so hard I swear she can hear it, feel it. She touches my ear with a damp nose, pushes her head against my neck, as if she’s trying to tell me something. That’s crazy, though, I know.
Just as quickly, she moves away, and I feel so lost my hand reaches out to stroke the sleek, red fur on her head, her back, as she slides out of reach. Her glossy brush swishes as she walks, and in a heartbeat she has disappeared, camouflaged among the coppery leaves of the woodland floor.
I touch a hand to my ear, my cheek, in disbelief. My whole body feels awake, alive, flooded with hope and happiness, a sense of magic. Am I really crazy to think the fox was trying to help me, to tell me something?
Well, probably. What kind of message would a fox have, anyway?
I look through the slender trees, the tangle of bushes, the patchwork carpet of bright leaves. A fox doesn’t worry about which people are cool to know and which are not. A fox just is. A fox trusts its instincts, sees people for who they really are, knows itself. It doesn’t play games, or pretend to be something it’s not.
Nothing is different, yet everything is.
I get up, brushing leaves from my jeans, my dress, and as I look up through the canopy of trees, a curled, crimson leaf drifts down in front of me. I reach out my hand and the leaf lands on my palm, as if it was always meant to be there.
I close my eyes and make a wish, and this time, I’m careful what I wish for. I wish for good friends, honest friends, real friends, and I wish for a boy in a funny hat, a boy who believed in me once, and maybe could again.
You can’t just reinvent yourself, decide to be someone you’re not. You can try, of course, but no matter how fast you run, you can never escape yourself. Life is a journey, a slow discovery of who you are, and I realize now I’m only just starting out.
Perhaps I’ve messed up, lost Sam, and that hurts – but it’s a mistake I won’t ever make again, I know.
I push the bike through the crackling woodland and out on to the lane. I wipe the last traces of tears from my eyes, smooth my hair, and take a deep breath in. Then I freewheel down the hill, my hair flying out behind me, smiling and pedalling and singing inside, all the way home.
On Monday morning, Emily is waiting for me at the school gates, and I’m glad to see her, I really am. She smiles and hugs me, quickly, warmly, and I find myself telling her everything, that Sam has gone, that Shannon hasn’t called, that I’ve made about a million mistakes and only just realized it. I tell her about the little fox too, and see her eyes widen, her mouth curve into a grin.
‘Wow,’ she says. ‘Wow!’
Emily links my arm and tells me things will all work out, and although I don’t believe her, it still helps to hear it. It helps to have Emily by my side.
There is no sign of Shannon, or Sam, but still, I hold my head high.
Everyone is talking about S’cool magazine, and I’m grateful that today is launch day, because that means I’ll be too busy to worry for long about the mess I’ve made of my life.
‘Keep smiling,’ Emily says. ‘Come on.’
We sell a shedload of copies from our stall in the lobby during registration and break, and in English we break into teams and head off to flog what’s left all around the school. At first it’s just the Year Sevens and Eights buying the copies, plus a few polite teachers, but as the morning wears on a buzz starts to grow and everyone wants their own copy of S’cool.
By lunchtime, we’re all back in Room 17, sold out. Mr Hunter declares the project a complete success. ‘Well done, all of you!’ he says. ‘You’ve worked so hard, given me your very best. The mag is creative, cool, compulsive reading… and you made it. You’re stars, every one of you!’
A ragged cheer erupts.
‘You’d think Shannon would have turned up to see how things turned out,’ Jas Kapoor says. In the cold light of day, his eye is not so much black but a dozen shades of green, purple and mustard, but he doesn’t seem to care. ‘She’s the editor, after all. Besides, I want to know if she found my camera… I kind of mislaid it, what with all the confusion at the end.’
‘The fight, you mean,’ Robin says.
Jas shrugs. ‘Hazard of the job for a paparazzi like me. I need that camera, though. Seriously, some of those shots I could sell to the tabloids.’
Mr Hunter rolls his eyes. ‘I think it might be a good thing the camera got lost,’ he says. ‘Come on, you lot. Canteen… I’ll treat you all to a celebration lunch!’
We grab a big, central table and get stuck into pizza and chips, toasting Mr Hunter in Coke while teachers and pupils alike stop by to congratulate us on the magazine. ‘So, Sir, when do we start work on the next issue?’ Robin asks.
‘You want to do another?’
‘Of course!’ Emily insists. ‘We have tons of ideas. This magazine thing, it’s addictive, isn’t it?’
‘Definitely. I’d love it if S’cool was a regular thing,’ Mr Hunter says. ‘It’ll have to be a strictly af
ter-school activity, next time, but I’ll give you all the help I can, and you can use Room 17 as a base.’
Mr Kelly walks over, brandishing his copy of S’cool. ‘Not bad,’ he declares. ‘Not bad at all, from a rabble like you lot. Perhaps a maths page next time, Mr Hunter? Something to stimulate the brain?’
‘Perhaps,’ Mr Hunter says politely. ‘Praise indeed,’ he adds quietly as the old maths teacher walks away. ‘I’d hoped Miss Bennett might have given me her verdict, though. I left a copy of the mag on her desk first thing.’
‘I think she’s holed up in the office with some troublemaker,’ Emily says. ‘The red light’s been on all morning. Must be serious.’
‘Sam Taylor?’ Jas quips. ‘I think she secretly likes him. Perhaps he’s giving her saxophone lessons?’
My heart sinks, remembering Sunday afternoon by the canal, the big empty space where Sam’s boat used to be.
‘About Sam Taylor…’ I begin.
My words fizzle out as the double doors to the lunchroom swing open, and a boy appears, on crutches. He’s a tall, cute boy with unruly curls and a lopsided grin, and he’s wearing a drooping tweed overcoat, a black felt cap and a plaster cast on his right foot.
‘Just talkin’ about you!’ Jas crows. ‘What happened? Drop the sax on your toe?’
‘Something like that.’ Sam shoots me a searching look, then hobbles across to the lunch queue. I swallow. Was that a friendly, searching look, or a hostile, searching look? I guess there’s only one way to find out. I push my chair back, get to my feet.
‘Go for it,’ Emily whispers, squeezing my hand.
I slip into the queue behind Sam, take a deep breath. ‘Sam,’ I say. ‘About Saturday…’
He spoons sausage, beans and fruit salad on to the same plate, his face impassive. ‘Mmmm?’
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