He replaced the receiver hurriedly and walked guiltily into the kitchen, closing the door softly behind him.
All my loathing for him returned. He was still in touch with them. Secret calls, like the ones I could remember from so long ago. Whispered calls.
‘I’ll get in touch with you.’
It wasn’t finished. Magnus Pierce here in the house, and now this. He’d never change. Like Ralph Aird had said, the leopard never changes his spots.
The hardest thing I’d ever had to do was go to school next day. Even harder than the day so long ago when the whole story of J.B. broke in all the papers. At least then the teachers understood, especially Murdo. He had done his best to protect me from all the unwanted attention, asking me to stay in his class to help with a class project, giving me a lift home.
Today, there would be no one to protect me.
But I was wrong.
I still had Diane.
Ralph had spread the word to everyone and as I walked into the playground half the pupils who were hanging around the school gates immediately started mooing like cows.
Ralph sauntered up to me like a cowboy. ‘How d’ye like your steak, honey?’ Then he threw out his answer with a cowboy yell. ‘Just yank off the horns and put it on a plate!’
Everyone burst out laughing at that. I’m sure I would have cried, wouldn’t have been able to stop myself when suddenly, there was Diane pushing past Ralph with such force he stumbled and almost fell. He just glared at her.
‘Hey Connell, watch it!’
She ignored him. She put her arm in mine and pulled me on. ‘Come on, Lissa, let’s get away from this low life scum.’
It was a wonderful moment. She gave me all the strength I needed to stare right back at Ralph Aird and his nerdy friends. I was better than them. Even if J.B. had shamed me I would always be better than Ralph Aird.
‘You think you are something, Lissa Blythe,’ he rasped at me.
I grinned back at him. ‘You are something too, Ralph Aird, but I’m too much of a lady to tell you what it is.’
Then, with a cowboy yell of our own, Diane and I raced off.
‘Thanks, Diane, that was brilliant,’ I told her as we went into class. ‘That’ll show Ralph Aird.’
‘No, it won’t,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Someone like him has to be taught a lesson. We’ve got to bring him down a peg or two.’
Always with Diane it was ‘we’. Whatever hurt me, hurt her. She was definitely, I thought then, the best friend anyone could ever have.
‘Yes, but what could we possibly do to Ralph Aird?’
She sucked in her cheeks, a sure sign she was thinking hard. Her brain was working. ‘We’ll think of something,’ she said at last.
Murdo was in a great mood that morning. He beamed a big smile around the class, and it was all thanks to Ralph Aird. His banner was almost finished. And even I had to admit it looked impressive.
‘By next week,’ Murdo bellowed, ‘it will be down off the wall, and in for the competition, and I think it has an excellent chance of winning. It’s imaginative. It’s clever, and it takes us on a journey through the world of books.’ He aimed his smile at Ralph. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job, Ralph. Come up here with me and bask in your class’s admiration.’
Ralph shuffled out of his seat, his neck crimson with embarrassment, and possibly with pride too.
I thought he looked smug.
Murdo put a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the collage.
‘Ralph read all these books you know. So he could really get to know the characters he was drawing.’ This was Ralph Aird who had probably never read a book before in his life. Ralph looked even more embarrassed. ‘And what wonderful characters he chose.’ Murdo’s voice rose with enthusiasm.
I looked at the collage too, at Oliver Twist asking for more and Captain Ahab and the great Moby Dick (Murdo had, by that time, told us all about him), at Long John Silver complete with parrot. And Harry Potter pointing off into the distance to a future where books will always be. The cut-out figures were alive and colourful and seemed as if they were ready to leap from the wall. Ralph had talent. Murdo had found it. So why did it make me so angry?
‘If Ralph doesn’t take the prize home for this school, I’ll lay an egg.’ Murdo laughed heartily. Only Diane and I didn’t join in. ‘So, now, I would like you to join me in congratulating Ralph for all his hard work and wishing him all the best in the competition.’
He began to clap. One by one the class joined him enthusiastically. Once Ralph had been really unpopular. Lots of people still thought he was obnoxious, but they also admired how hard he had worked. Ralph tried not to beam with delight. Everyone applauding Ralph Aird? My stomach tightened with something more than anger.