Bad Company(21)

And then, yesterday, something changed. There was a phone call, just after I came in from school. His voice was soft as he answered it and that made me suspicious right away. Then he told me to keep an eye on Margo, he had to go out for a while. He was back within half an hour, but there was something different about him. I couldn’t figure out what it was until today when he was striding about the house, doing the housework, hoovering, yet all the while concentrating hard, as if his mind was on something else entirely.

He had a purpose.

Has he got the chance of another job? If that’s the case, why hasn’t he told Mum about it?

Or is it something else? Something dark and sinister and called Magnus Pierce?

It was. I know that now. But at that time, I had enough to worry me just going to school every day.

‘Could someone partner Lissa here?’ Miss Day, our science teacher, looked around the classroom. Everyone else was working in pairs but as usual I was on my own. When Diane wasn’t at school I was always on my own. And Diane wasn’t at school today. She was off for her interview at Adler Academy and the thought that I might soon be losing her scared me. I just had to get into Adler Academy too.

‘I said!’ Miss Day tapped the desk with her pencil. ‘Can we have a partner for Lissa Blythe?’

Everyone found somewhere else to look. Since that day when I’d come back to school not one of my classmates had broken breath to me. Most of the time I didn’t care. I had Diane. Even though our friendship was frowned upon by Murdo, who disliked both of us now, and by J.B. He wanted me to stop seeing her altogether. He might have been able to stop me seeing Diane after school – and he had. But he had no power over who I was friendly with in school. Especially since, thanks to him, I had no other friends.

But on days like these it would have been pleasant to have someone to sit with in the canteen during lunch, instead of eating by myself at a long empty table. Listening to the throb of conversation and not being able to join in.

‘No one wants to be my partner, Miss,’ I told her.

‘Nonsense, Lissa!’ and just then to my utter astonishment and terror, Ralph Aird stepped forward.

‘I’ll be her partner, Miss.’

Miss Day beamed. ‘Ah good, Ralph. That’s what I like to see, turning the other cheek.’

Miss Day lived in a born-again Christian world, but I was afraid that if I turned the other cheek to Ralph Aird he’d most probably punch it.

Ralph Aird came to my table without a word. There was a smug look on his face – but there was always a smug look about him now. As if he’d won something over me. Now, he had friends galore. He was included in every group, smiled on by teachers, especially Murdo who was always involved in deep conversations with him. Now, he never missed school. I had begun to think I had done him a favour destroying that collage.

Yet I still remembered the way he had spat out those words at me. ‘You’re goin’ to be sorry.’ And he still made me afraid.

Ralph Aird had been a wasp up my nose for too long to think he’d just fly off without stinging me. Every night I waited to hear our old car’s windows being smashed, or maybe I’d wake in the midnight dark and sniff, sure I could detect the smell of petrol being poured across the doorstep before he set our whole house ablaze.

All I knew was he was planning to do something.

I held my breath as he came toward me. Would it be today? An accident in the science lesson? I glanced at a jug of maggots Miss Day had ready for one of her experiments. I had a sudden nightmare vision of Ralph Aird grabbing them and pouring them down my throat. There would certainly be plenty of people willing to hold me down while he did.

‘Can’t have wee Lissa on her own, can we?’ he said sarcastically.

‘Doesn’t bother me,’ I told him.

‘’Course it does. You used to be the big shot. And now, look at you. Not a soul’s even talking to you.’

He was trying to goad me but I wouldn’t listen.

‘Don’t care.’

Still he couldn’t let it go. ‘Nobody likes you, Lissa. But do you know what I tell them? Because I’m always sticking up for you.’ He sniggered. ‘I tell them,’ his voice was soft, so soft Miss Day would never hear him, ‘I tell them to feel sorry for you. Because you’re pathetic. Really pathetic.’

And that’s when he really got through to me. Not with his hate, and not with his threats, but I just couldn’t, wouldn’t take his pity.

I looked around for something handy, and there it was, that big jug of maggots. I lifted it and before he knew what was happening I had tipped the whole squirming lot over Ralph’s head.