Secrets, Lies, and Locker 62

by Lil Chase

  ‘What are you talking about, Francesca?’ says Zeba.

  ‘Frankie,’ I beg, ‘please be quiet.’

  ‘St Cecilia’s is an all-girls’ school.’

  Everyone stares at me and I slowly die in front of them. No, that’s wishful thinking. Unfortunately I’m still alive.

  ‘Right, are you all ready to go?’ asks Stanley, as he opens the door into the dark room beyond. ‘Into the arena.’

  Chapter 22

  In the dim light of the Laser Quest arena I can only just make out the flashing LEDs of Frankie and Zeba in front of me. The room is set up like a maze, with barricades and blocks everywhere. I hear someone somewhere firing their laser and then a girl shriek, and then giggle.

  ‘Wait for me, Billy!’ calls Rochelle’s voice.

  We’re walking along in silence, the three of us too stunned to speak. We round a corner and I hold my gun ready. I see a figure in the distance. Then I see the flash of their pack.

  Zeba moves forward and shoots. Direct hit! The pack flashes and whirs.

  The person turns round. It’s Mark Nowicki. ‘Shove off, will you?’ he says. And I see there is a person behind him. Amanda. Mark turns back and the two of them start snogging.

  I want to feel happy about this but I can’t. Frankie puts out her hand for a high five but I push past it.

  We get to an intersection, and Frankie goes one way and Zeba another.

  ‘Zebes,’ I say, ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘I don’t want you with me,’ she says. ‘I’d rather go with Frankie.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘We should stick together.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she replies. ‘We should stick together, not lie to our friends.’

  ‘I don’t want to go with you, Zeba,’ says Frankie. Then she turns to me. ‘And why don’t you want to be with me?’

  ‘Because I would probably trip over your big mouth and end up shooting myself!’ I say.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she says to me.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Zeba says to Frankie. ‘Why wouldn’t you want me on your team? I’m a more loyal friend that she is.’ Zeba points at me with her gun.

  ‘How dare you?!’ I say to Zeba.

  But Zeba is still talking to Frankie. ‘You are so jealous about you and your beffy.’ She sneers at the word beffy. ‘Now I see why: Maya has fidelity issues.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I say.

  ‘You can’t be trusted,’ says Zeba.

  ‘Maya can’t be trusted?!’ says Frankie. ‘What about you, Zeba? You’re the one who persuaded Maya to abandon me at Starbucks!’

  Even in the darkness I can still see the white of Zeba’s teeth as her jaw drops. ‘Is that what she told you?’ She turns to me. ‘You are unbelievable!’

  I want to shout something back. I want to defend myself, but I take a moment to think about it and realize I can’t: I have lied. I have been disloyal. I have been a rubbish friend.

  ‘Do you know what, Frankie?’ says Zeba. ‘You don’t have to worry that I’ll come between you and Maya any more. My first impression was right. From now on, it’s every man for herself.’

  She shoots me three times in the chest, and my pack whirs and bleeps as Zeba walks off into the darkness.

  I turn to Frankie. ‘She’s right,’ I say, approaching her with my arms open. ‘I can’t really have a go at you for telling them all the truth. I shouldn’t have lied—’

  Frankie sniffs, and even though I can’t make out her face I know she is crying. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she says. ‘You told me it was Zeba who made you abandon me, but it was you.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘What’s happened to you, Maya?’ she asks. ‘I thought we could survive anything: you going to a different school, new friends coming along, boyfriends, horses – nothing would break our friendship.’ She sniffs again and sighs in a way that’s holding in a sob. ‘But one look from a cooler crowd and you drop me like I was … a piece of shit.’

  I thought I would never hear Frankie say a four-letter word that wasn’t pony.

  ‘Frankie, I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive—’

  ‘See you round, B— See you round, Maya.’ She raises her gun, shoots me in the chest and walks away.

  I raise my gun, turn it round and shoot myself.

  Chapter 23

  I’m feeling so sad and all I want is one of my mum’s lipgloss pep talks. Actually, I think I need more than lipgloss this time … a makeover and a four-hour seminar wouldn’t even fix this. My two best friends hate me, and I can’t blame them; I hate myself. I’ve been an idiot, trying to be friends with the cool crowd when I already have the best friends a girl could ask for. Had best friends. Now I have no one.

  ‘Mum!’

  I push open the door to our flat. ‘Mum!?’ I run into the kitchen and she’s not there. I try her bedroom, but it’s empty. I go to the bathroom and it’s locked. I knock. ‘Mum?’

  No response.

  I hammer on the door. ‘Mummy?’

  Nothing.

  I phone her. The phone rings in my ear and then I hear it ringing in the room.

  ‘Arrrrrgh.’ I hear a moan.

  It’s Mum! I run back to the bathroom door.

  ‘Maya …’ She sounds like something out of a scary movie, like she is half asleep or half dead and desperate to get to me. But this is scarier than a scary movie because it’s my mum and she’s in real pain.

  ‘Mum?’ I call. ‘Is it the baby, Mum?’

  ‘Arrrrrghowwww!’

  I push the door with all my might but it’s not budging. She must have locked it, or maybe she’s fallen against it.

  ‘Mum, move away from the door!’ I shout.

  I throw myself at the door. Pain shoots up and down my arm but it doesn’t budge.

  There is another faint groan from inside.

  ‘Mum, don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m calling 999.’

  I just hope they’re not too late.

  By the time we’re in the radiography department Mum is looking much better. She’s managed to drink a cup of sweet tea, which I bought with the last of my allowance.

  Mum has all this goo on her belly and the radiographer is pushing this thing that looks like an electric razor over her bump. She’s doing an ultrasound check on the baby.

  ‘There he is,’ the woman says.

  I’ve never been to a scan before. Last time, Mum said she wanted it to be just her and Dave. But Dave’s not around any more and now it’s just her and me … and my baby brother.

  I’ve seen photos, but this is completely different. The bumpling actually looks like a baby, and I realize that very soon he will be here.

  ‘Look at him,’ says Mum with a deep sigh. ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘He looks OK to me,’ the woman says with a smile.

  ‘Thank God.’ Tears of relief well up in Mum’s eyes.

  I can see his nose. It’s Mum’s nose – sweet and upturned and without the bump in it that I must have got from my dad. The baby’s clenching his fist and then unclenching it. He’s a proper little human.

  ‘In fact,’ says the woman, ‘he seems very healthy indeed. Second babies often are though.’

  ‘Is that right?’ says Mum, with an interested frown. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘The mother’s body is familiar with the process. It knows what to do this time round.’

  Mum frowns harder.

  I frown too. ‘Are you OK, Mum?’ I ask.

  She whips round as if she’d forgotten I was there. She smiles at me and nods, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘I’m fine, Sweet Dream,’ she says. ‘Just fine.’

  I’m not convinced.

  ‘Practice contractions sometimes happen at this late stage in the pregnancy,’ says the woman, ‘but it’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. I overreacted. I wasted everyone’s time.

  ‘You did exactly the right thing calling the ambulance,’ she tells
me. ‘You must have been terrified.’

  It was terrifying, and only now that it’s over can I really feel how terrifying it was.

  Silence from Mum, who seems a little dazed. It must be the shock of everything. Or maybe the woman is wrong and there is something worse going on. Something she can’t pick up on her machine.

  ‘Mum’s been working really hard,’ I say. ‘She commutes from Greenford to Denham every day and she gets home really late.’

  The woman turns to Mum and rolls her eyes. ‘I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled!’ she says. Then she wags her finger at Mum. ‘Don’t do things that will put strain on the baby. Take it easy. No stress. You should know all this from when you did it the first time round.’ The woman looks at me. ‘Although I suppose you were a lot younger back then.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mum says.

  ‘So the baby is definitely OK?’ I ask one more time to be sure.

  ‘He’s fine. Listen to that heartbeat.’

  There is a whooping rhythm coming from the machine. I know it’s a heartbeat because I have seen it on films and stuff; it’s definitely beating and it’s definitely strong.

  ‘Is that what mine was like, Mum?’ I ask.

  Mum’s still in a daze. ‘I don’t remember.’

  I suppose it was thirteen years ago.

  The radiographer smiles at me and gives me a wink.

  While Mum wipes the goo off her belly and gets her clothes back on, the radiographer comes over to me.

  ‘You’re going to have to look after your mum for the next few weeks until the baby comes.’

  I nod.

  ‘She seems a little out of it at the moment.’ She sighs. ‘Is baby’s dad not around?’

  I shake my head. There’s a lump in my throat. Not about Dave – I don’t care about Dave – but it’s scary being the only one to look after Mum.

  Mum waddles over to me. She thanks the radiographer with a weak smile, puts an arm round me and I help her out of the room. This is one of those times when I am the adult and she is the child.

  I wish it didn’t happen so often.

  Chapter 24

  School was tough today. I texted Mum about a thousand times and she always texted back to say she was fine. She’s stopped working and has agreed, after much begging from me, to rest as much as possible.

  The other reason I’ve texted Mum loads is because I have no one else to text. Normally I’d be texting Frankie and talking to Zeba – or Zeba would be talking to me – but it’s them I need to talk about: I miss them so much.

  It’s nearly four thirty on Monday afternoon, and the school is almost empty. I walk towards locker 62. Usually Zeba stands lookout while I empty the locker. But it’s just me now so I have to be extra careful that no one sees me.

  There’s the poster Zeba and I put up for our poetry competition, and a cardboard box underneath for people to put in their entries. Someone has scrawled the word Lame! across the bottom. I suppose I should tell Miss Draper the poetry competition is cancelled.

  I peer round the corner. No one.

  I open locker 62.

  There are about five or six new secrets since we emptied them last week.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’

  There’s someone behind me.

  I turn round.

  ‘What the hell … ?’

  Oh God, it’s Karmella. What do I do now? ‘Karmella …’ I start, but I don’t know what to say. Her eyes are wide and she simply shakes her head.

  I push the locker door to, as if that will make a difference and she will unsee what she just saw.

  In her hand she has a piece of paper. She scrunches it up into a ball. ‘How did you get that locker open?’ she asks.

  ‘I … I …’

  ‘How?!’ she demands. ‘That locker has been locked forever.’

  ‘I know, I … The school gave it to me.’

  ‘I heard you lied about your boyfriend.’ She takes a step towards me, her finger pointing in my face. ‘If you’re lying to me now—’

  ‘I swear, Karmella!’ I say, holding up my hands. ‘The school must have made a mistake. I was just given this locker. I had no idea what it all meant. Not until I started reading them, and then—’

  She drops her finger. ‘You’ve read them?’

  I nod. ‘Of course. But I’ve only used them to try to make people happy. I thought that if I helped people with their problems I could—’

  ‘What do they say?’ she asks, a smile slowly growing on her face.

  That stops me in my tracks for a second. ‘Umm, well … they say all sorts of things.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asks, smiling broadly now. ‘Anything juicy?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ She looks like the locker has put a spell on her. ‘I found this secret that I think is from Luke Marino. I’m not sure, but I think he’s pretending to be something he’s not. Because of someone called Raphael.’

  ‘Is Luke Marino gay?’ asks Karmella, beaming.

  ‘No!’ I blurt out. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What else? Where are they? I want to see them.’ I try to block her path, but she pushes me out of the way. She flings open the locker. It’s just the five secrets that were there earlier. She picks them up and reads each one in turn. She gasps as she reads.

  ‘Someone ran over their sister’s cat and let everyone think it had got lost! Do you think that’s James Steinhardt in Year 12? He’s got a car and I overheard him talking about a missing cat.’

  I don’t answer. She picks up another one, reads it and laughs. ‘Oh my God, Cassandra Myles doesn’t wear knickers!’ She picks up another. ‘I wish I was adopted,’ she says in a whiny voice. ‘Oh boohoo!’

  I grab the secrets out of her hand.

  She looks at me and her eyes are sparkling. ‘This is brilliant! Where are the rest of them? I want to see more.’

  My mind races. I feel protective of the secrets. This is not the response that Zeba or Frankie had. We never laughed or made fun of people’s feelings. I slam the locker shut so she can’t get back in.

  ‘What’s the combination?’ she says.

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ I tell her.

  She steps forward and I have to reverse so my back slams into the locker. The metallic thud reverberates through the room.

  ‘Give me the secrets,’ she growls.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  I say nothing and close my eyes tight, wondering if she’s going to hit me. I wait for ages but nothing happens. When I dare to open my eyes I see that she has taken a step back; she’s thinking.

  ‘This is silly, Maya,’ she says, a glint in her eye. ‘We should be friends – we’re already friends.’

  ‘Are we?’ I’m not convinced by her sucking up. ‘You said I couldn’t be your friend unless I stopped hanging out with Zeba.’

  ‘Rochelle told me that you aren’t friends with Zeba any more. That you and the goth and Little Miss Pony Club had a falling-out.’

  ‘I …’ There’s nothing I can say because it’s completely true.

  ‘Well then, what’s the problem?’ she says, smiling sweetly. ‘I’ll be your friend,’ she continues. ‘I’ll make you cool. I will even help you to get Ben Sands, if you like.’

  My head flicks up automatically at Ben’s name.

  ‘I thought you might like the sound of that,’ she says, winking at me.

  I nod and smile at her. I can’t help myself. The idea of being Ben Sands’s girlfriend is just too appealing.

  She steps forward and links her arm through mine. ‘So, you’ll be my friend and I’ll be yours.’

  I pause, but there’s nothing to think about. I have no friends, and Karmella is offering me everything I could ever want: Ben Sands, the chance to be in the cool crowd, and safety from the bullies. She’s offering her friendship too.

  ‘Friends share secrets with each other,’ she says as she leads me towards the door.

  I’m not sure that real friendships are made this way, b
ut what choice do I have?

  ‘Come on,’ she tugs me along. ‘It’ll be fun!’

  Whatever happens, Karmella is going to change everything.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘it’ll be great.’ But I say it without a smile on my face.

  Chapter 25

  As soon as we get inside my room, Karmella is already opening cupboards and drawers. ‘Where are they?’ she says. She pulls out my pretty notepad with the embroidered flower design from under my bed and opens it. ‘Is this them?’

  ‘No!’ I shout, and snatch the book from her. ‘That’s my diary! And you can’t read it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, then giggles. ‘Sorry.’

  I get out the box of secrets from the bottom of my wardrobe. ‘Here they are.’ I push it towards Karmella, who kneels before it like it holds treasure.

  ‘This is amazing.’ She opens the lid and actually strokes the pile of papers. ‘There are so many!’ Karmella lifts the box and she’s about to tip all the secrets out.

  ‘Stop!’ I rush forward to stop her. ‘We’re trying to keep them in order. The deeper in the locker, the older the secret. Like in palaeontology.’

  Karmella looks blank.

  ‘Let me show you.’ I pull over my laptop, where I have the master copy of the Secrets Spreadsheet. ‘Some of them even had dates written on them, which really helped. But others—’

  ‘Whatever,’ she says, and grabs the laptop from me, clearly not interested in efficiency. ‘Just get to the good bit.’

  ‘Look, here’s one from Mark Nowicki: I fancy Amanda Curran. So much I can’t even look at her.’

  ‘That cello loser,’ says Karmella. ‘Mark Nowicki doesn’t fancy her.’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ I say. ‘He put his name on it. And last time I saw them they were snogging each other’s faces off.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  I get the secrets I took from Karmella an hour ago and flip through them. ‘Look,’ I say, ‘this was in the locker today.’

  I throw Karmella a look that says See!

  Karmella is hooked on my every word. I continue reading.