My Best Friend and Other Enemies

by Catherine Wilkins

  I sit next to Cherry in most of my lessons. Double geography first thing on Friday morning is no exception. I decide to ask her and Shantair (who sits on the other side of Cherry and is also in the chess club). They seem as good a place to start as any.

  But to be honest, when I broach the subject (while we are supposed to be quietly shading in maps of Europe) they don’t seem bowled over by the idea. If anything, they seem a little bit suspicious of it.

  I mean, I suppose it doesn’t help that Shantair and Cherry are really hard-working and love trying their hardest at everything, so they think I’m interrupting their learning. (That’s probably one of the few downsides of my chess club friends – they don’t approve of whispering in lessons.) Natalie and Emily and the others positively love whispering when we are meant to be learning.

  “But why?” asks Shantair. “What would we do in the gang?”

  “Just hang out and stuff,” I answer. “But we’ll know we’re in a secret gang.” (I don’t really know anything about what you’re actually meant to do in a gang. Maybe I should Google it?) “Kind of like being in the chess club,” I add with an inspired flourish.

  “But we’re already in the chess club,” says Cherry, sounding confused.

  “I know. So it will be slightly different. But, you know … um, look, do you want to join or not?” I’m starting to feel a bit cross. People should want to join, surely? I mean, I’d want to join a secret gang if someone asked me. Am I the only one that thinks it sounds exciting?

  “Would I have to do anything?” asks Cherry.

  “No, you wouldn’t have to do anything,” I say.

  “All right, fine,” says Cherry.

  “Yeah, fine,” agrees Shantair.

  “Great!” I say. “We’re called ACE and remember, it’s a secret.” We can work on your negative attitudes later, I add silently.

  I start to perk up again at break time. Who cares if they’re reluctant? They’ve still joined. They’ll see it’s fun once we get going. I have two members already! This is still going to be brilliant.

  I bump into Tanya Harris in the corridor near our form room. I wonder if I should invite Tanya to join? I mean, she probably won’t want to, but I did say I’d ask everyone I knew.

  “All right, Toons?” she says. “What’s new with you?”

  “Actually, Tanya, I’ve just formed a gang,” I say proudly.

  Tanya gives a little chuckle and then looks at me quizzically. “What?” she says.

  “I’ve just formed a gang,” I repeat.

  “You have?” She looks quite surprised.

  “Yes. We’re called ACE. It stands for Awesome Cool Enterprises—”

  I don’t get much further as I’m distracted by how much Tanya is laughing. She has to lean against the wall and when she stands up straight again, her face is red and she has to wipe tears away from the corners of her eyes.

  Once she has finally stopped laughing, all I can get out of her is that she thinks I am “well bare jokes”, which (I’m not going to lie to you) I think might mean she’s not a hundred per cent sold on the idea of ACE.

  I decide to plough on anyway. “Do you want to join my gang?” I ask.

  Tanya splutters more laughter. “Stop it, stop it,” she says. “My stomach hurts.”

  “I don’t see why it’s that funny,” I say.

  “The thing is with gangs, Toons, is they’re not normally called things that go on about how nice and awesome they are. Haven’t you ever heard of the Crips and the Bloods?”

  I have heard of them, but I don’t know exactly what they are. I think they were rival gangs in Los Angeles, with guns or something.

  “Well, yes, OK. But this is going to be a nice gang. Theoretically, you could have a nice gang, couldn’t you?”

  Tanya looks at me seriously for a moment. I get the distinct impression that, despite laughing in my face, she doesn’t actually want to offend me.

  “Maybe you could,” she says. “But Tanya Harris can’t go joining no nice gang. I’ve got my reputation to think of. I’m a lone wolf. Don’t fence me in. No one can put a label on Tanya ‘the Beef’ Harris.”

  “Tanya ‘the Beef’ Harris?” I repeat.

  “It’s just a nickname I’m trying out. I’m hoping it will catch on. Pass it on.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Tell you what,” she says. “I’ll be your muscle, if you need it, for your gang. But just freelance. If anything kicks off, I got your back.”

  I didn’t understand any of that. “Um, OK, thanks, Tanya. That’s brilliant.”

  OK, so. On the one hand, I have been quite seriously laughed at and no one really wants to join my gang. But, on the other hand, it’s technically going well in that I have 2.5 members already. (Depending on what Tanya actually meant.)

  I try to jolly myself along. I just have to be positive. I mean, this is really just a glass half-empty/half-full situation. Or maybe it’s more a situation where I thought I had this really brilliant glass, full of the most delicious drink ever, but it turns out I’m just holding an empty, value supermarket brand, multi-pack cola can.

  No, I should be positive. And it’s actually been much easier than I feared to avoid Natalie and Amelia. I don’t sit with them in most lessons, and I didn’t look for them at break time. Well, I didn’t see them. I kept half an eye out, but I didn’t actively look for them. Not like before, anyway.

  They weren’t in the form room. They were probably off doing something secret. Well, wait till they see how secretive I can be, when I start parading my secret gang in their stupid faces!

  Although, then it won’t be a secret. Well, I’ll have to tell them about the initial secret, so that they know there is something they don’t know. I’m sure that’s how it works.

  This thought spurs me on to be even more positive. Plus, now it’s French and French is in the exciting new building. Our school got a grant or something to start teaching languages. Though I don’t see why we needed a whole new classroom. The only difference as far as I can see is that we have headphones in this room. Anyway, in French I sit with Emily, Fatimah and Megan (the girls from my art table) and they’re bound to want to join ACE. Aren’t they? I just have to sell it right.

  The thing about getting Cherry and Shantair to join was I had to make it sound like an extra-curricular interest. That way they felt like they were somehow achieving something by joining. (They love extra-curricular interests: Cherry plays the violin, and Shantair goes to a drama club at the weekends.)

  But Emily, Megan and Fatimah seem to hate doing anything that sounds like it might be work, so with them I’m going to have to play up the fun element.

  We’re doing group work in this lesson, where we take it in turns to ask each other what our names are and how many brothers and sisters we have. (In French, obviously. If we had to speak in English, it would be easy.)

  “Hey, I have to ask you guys something,” I say. They look at me, interested.

  But then Miss Price, the French teacher, comes over to us and hovers, so I quickly have to revert to “J’ai un frère et une soeur” instead.

  Miss Price finally leaves us (after a quick discussion with Emily about whether or not the French book is stupid for not including the French for stepdad). And I drop my secret-gang bombshell.

  I think I may have overused the word “secret” this time, as I was trying to make it sound more appealing. But these guys seem really interested. They keep grinning at each other, and they all lean in to hear more when Emily asks what kind of secret gang it is.

  Hmm, maybe I should have Googled “gangs” at break time as I’m still not sure I have a satisfactory answer to that question. I switch to being evasive and overusing the word “fun” instead. Maybe I should suggest sleepovers?

  “Who else is in the gang?” asks Fatimah.

  “Yeah, how many members are there?” asks Megan. “You don’t want too many, or it won’t be very secret.”

  “Yes, no, exactly,�
�� I say. “Other than me, there are two and a half members so far.”

  “How are there two and a half members?” asks Emily.

  “Well, Cherry and Shantair joined outright, and Tanya Harris said she’d be freelance.”

  “What does that mean?” asks Emily.

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  “Tanya Harris?” Fatimah sounds slightly in awe.

  “I think it’s going to be really fun,” I say. “We should have sleepovers.”

  “Yeahhh!” whispers Emily excitedly. “I’m well up for that. Count me in.”

  The others say “Me too” pretty quickly after that. Sleepovers. That’s the way forward. Maybe I should buy my mum a present to say sorry for annoying her, and then she might actually let me have one? Hmm.

  Anyway, never mind that now. That’s a technicality. We have to celebrate! I have successfully formed a gang! There’s six of us (not counting Tanya, which something tells me I shouldn’t).

  I round everybody up at lunch (except Tanya) and insist we all eat together, to mark the occasion. It’s the first ever ACE meeting.

  Everybody seems a little bemused at first. Shantair and Cherry don’t really have that much in common with Emily, Megan and Fatimah.

  Shantair and Cherry are fairly shy, quiet and studious. I mean, they technically know Latin, just from learning music. Emily, Megan and Fatimah are louder, and don’t care at all about getting good marks. Plus Megan thought “arpeggio” was a golfer. So at first it’s a bit awkward, what with Cherry trying not to laugh in Megan’s face.

  But after I make us all clink our drinks together, and start talking about how we probably should invent a secret handshake, they all get a lot more enthusiastic. And it turns out they actually have loads in common with each other. (Well, OK, so far they all like chips but it’s a start!) This is brilliant!

  I knew this would be brilliant. I should listen to myself more often. I’m brilliant. I knew I was. What was all that worry about glasses being half full and half empty before? The rule is: I’m brilliant. That should just be a rule.

  And now the moment I’ve been waiting for since I came up with this idea.

  I enter my form room towards the end of lunch. Natalie and Amelia are sitting on our desks, as usual. I go over to them.

  “Oh hello, I didn’t see you there,” I say casually, sitting down.

  “Well, you obviously did see us,” says Amelia.

  “Speaking to us now, are you?” asks Natalie.

  Me? Not speaking to them? It takes two people to not speak to each other, and they weren’t speaking to me either! Not important, I realise. Calm, happy thoughts.

  “So, how’s it all going with the gang?” I ask, trying to sound earnest.

  Natalie and Amelia exchange looks with each other. “Fine, thanks,” says Natalie.

  “Good, good. They can be so tricky, can’t they?” I continue.

  “What would you know about it?” asks Amelia.

  “Well, it’s a very good question that you ask there actually, Amelia. What would I know about it? Well, quite a lot, as it happens. As I have just formed my own secret gang.”

  “KERPOW! Take that! Yeah! Feel it! I slammed you!” I add (silently in my head), looking eagerly from one to the other. To be fair, they do look surprised and confused, and keep looking at each other and then back at me. This is brilliant.

  “You?” says Natalie finally.

  “Yep,” I say.

  “You do know you’re meant to actually put a bit of thought into stuff like this?” says Amelia, sounding quite annoyed. “You can’t just copy people. You need to think about it, and have a name—”

  “Got a name, thanks,” I interrupt.

  “What’s your name?” Natalie sounds interested.

  “ACE,” I say proudly. “It stands for Awesome Cool Enterprises. I think it’s a nice message, really. And of course, the other advantage of ACE as a name is that the acronym doesn’t spell out one of the milder swear words for poo.”

  Zing! I love being in a gang. This was all totally worth it. What a difference a day makes. This time yesterday I was in a toilet trying not to cry. And this time today I feel on top of the world, and Natalie and Amelia look really annoyed with me.

  “You won’t get away with this,” says Amelia. But I just don’t even care.

  Ah, life is good. The last couple of days have really flown by. ACE has been going really well (although we haven’t really done much yet) and things just seem calmer generally.

  Natalie and Amelia have gone back to not speaking to me. It’s a pretty frosty atmosphere with them. They whisper about me, I’m sure, but they don’t giggle. They seem kind of angry with me. I don’t know why.

  Well, I mean, I do know why, I know exactly why. But if it’s not meant to be that big a deal that they formed a gang – and apparently no cause for me to be upset – then surely it follows that it shouldn’t be a big deal if I do it back to them. Which actually, if anything, just goes to prove that they do think it’s a big deal and they are lying hypocrites! They have tasted their own medicine and found it bitter! (Also they think I’m a copycat. But I don’t care.)

  Everything’s been calmer at home, too. I bought my mum a little box of Roses chocolates on my way home from school on Friday, as a kind of a sorry present, and she was delighted. In fact, she said she “would have to send me to my room more often, if this was the result”, which was really not the message I was trying to drive home.

  My parents keep commenting on how they haven’t seen much of Natalie lately, which is annoying. I don’t want to have to explain that we aren’t friends any more. Plus they really like Natalie. They might be upset that she’s turned evil.

  Now it’s Monday, and I’m on the bus to school again after quite a relaxing weekend. It feels a bit weird having not seen or spoken to Natalie all this time, I suppose, but in a way, nice not to have been on eggshells, or worrying I’m losing her by not being cool enough.

  I’m not sure how long this is going to go on for. I mean, I guess part of me thought they might go, “OK, point taken” and include me or something. But that hasn’t happened. It’s a kind of stalemate. No one’s really “won”. I don’t see how that can change. Unless they up the ante.

  As I enter my form room I see a bigger group of girls than usual crowded around Natalie and Amelia’s desks. There’s too many of them for the space, so the overflow has meant they’re round my desk too. They are all chattering excitedly, but they suddenly stop as they see me approach and kind of stare at me. One of them is actually sitting on my desk.

  “Uh, hi,” I say. They are all friends of Natalie’s and Amelia’s. They’re from 6P, the other form group.

  “Uh, hi.”

  “Uh, hi.”

  They appear to be doing impressions of me, and then they start giggling. Oh, great. Well, this is technically bullying. I feel my face start to get a bit hot.

  “Um, you’re actually sitting on my desk, actually,” I say to the one called Cassy.

  “Yeah, so?” she replies. More giggling.

  “Well, it’s my desk.” I start to feel annoyed, as well as hot and bothered. I look her in the face. I look round at all of them. Natalie and Amelia are there in the middle, really enjoying this.

  “It’s a free country,” she says.

  And then I spot them. They are all wearing badges! They are all wearing really cool pink and purple badges that say “CAC” on them. This is their gang and they all have badges to prove it. God, that’s amazing, I think reluctantly.

  “So is this CAC, then?” I ask.

  “Ah, bless. And you said she wasn’t that bright,” Cassy says sarcastically to Amelia. (How rude. I am bright! I know the word inalienable.)

  “Yeah,” says Amelia to me. “I take it you’ve spotted the badges then.”

  “Yes, very nice, well done. You must be very pleased,” I say, as if I’m a miffed parent who has been forced to congratulate someone else’s child on Sports D
ay.

  “Cassy has a badgemaker,” says Amelia.

  “I have a badgemaker,” says Cassy.

  “I think it’s the sort of thing you need to do, really,” says Amelia. “If you want to be a proper gang. Not just some wannabe.”

  They all look at me expectantly, as if they want some kind of response to this. I don’t really have anything to say about it, though.

  “Look, just get off my desk!” I say finally. Cassy jumps down. I think I shocked her.

  “Bell’s probably about to go anyway,” she quickly explains. The others all get up, too.

  “OK, see you back here at lunch, same meeting place,” says Natalie.

  Meeting place? No, look, my desk cannot become their meeting place. No way. That is so mean.

  “No,” I hear myself say. Cassy and the other CAC members turn back to me. I say to Natalie, “They’re not in our form, actually. So, it’s probably not the best place, is it?”

  Natalie rolls her eyes. “It probably doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “I think it does, though,” I say.

  “I don’t think it does,” says Natalie.

  “I think it does, though,” I repeat.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think it does.”

  “Yeah, but I do think it does,” I say again.

  The CAC heads are swivelling between Natalie and me. Amelia eventually interjects. “We’ll text you,” she says, and they leave.

  Oh my goodness. I can’t believe that just happened. They have upped the ante all right. They are shoving down my throat exactly how much I am being excluded! They are totally trying to rub in my face that they are a better gang than ACE. It’s outrageous. Now, I may not know much about the world, but I do know this: I need a badgemaker!