And still I couldn’t move. ‘Please,’ I said, hating myself for sounding so pitiful. ‘You’re my best friends. Just let me sit down.’
Erin swore at me. I’d never heard her swear before. ‘You’re no friend of ours. Can you not take a hint?’ And then she told me exactly where I could put my tray.
Chapter Nineteen
My mother at last figured out something was wrong. Quick, eh? However, she thought it was a boy! ‘First love,’ she said. ‘I remember mine. The ugliest boy in the school. I was mad about him, till somebody pointed out he was probably the best I could get. And I realised she was right. I was going with him because I couldn’t get anybody better. Story of my life, eh?’
It wasn’t going to be the story of mine! I’d always said I didn’t want to be like my mother. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself, or put myself down the way she did. Yet here I was, doing just that. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t even tell her it wasn’t a boy. As if I’d be so upset over a boy! I just wanted her to go away.
Mrs Tasker saw how upset I was too. She kept me back in class, saw my red-rimmed eyes, saw how the others ignored me, passing me notebooks and pencils by their fingertips as if they might catch something off me.
‘This has gone on far too long, Hannah.’
I knew she had heard the story and I wanted her to know I wasn’t responsible. ‘I’d never do anything like that.’
‘Have you tried to talk to Erin on her own?’
‘She won’t listen. You see how none of them talk to me.’
She was silent for a moment, as if she was thinking about something. ‘If I find a way for you to speak to her, do you think that would help?’
My heart leapt with hope. ‘That’s all I need, Mrs Tasker. If I had a chance to talk to Erin without other people butting in I know I could explain. She’s my best friend.’
Mrs Tasker steered me towards the door. ‘Come here at lunchtime, just before you’re ready to go back to class. I’ll have Erin here too.’
‘She won’t come if she knows I’m going to be here.’
‘Then I won’t tell her, Hannah. It’ll be our secret.’
Our secret. The words were like a knife slicing through me now, but at least I had some hope. In the quiet of Mrs Tasker’s classroom I would make Erin listen. Make her believe me. I knew I could.
All that morning I was like a cat on hot tiles. I couldn’t stay still. Couldn’t think of anything but meeting up with Erin.
I walked the corridor to Mrs Tasker’s class as if I was a dead man walking. I was getting my chance and I wasn’t going to waste it. If I could explain everything to Erin, then this would only be a hiccup in a perfect friendship.
Erin almost jumped out of the window when Mrs Tasker opened the door on me. Her face flushed with anger. ‘So, this is why you wanted to see me. Well, I’m not staying. I don’t want to talk to her.’
She got up from her seat but Mrs Tasker ordered her to sit down again, and Mrs Tasker is one of those teachers who, when she tells you to do something, you do it. She motioned me to the seat across from Erin.
‘Now, I’ll speak, and you will both listen,’ she began. ‘I’ve brought you here, because I see two girls who have always been friends. I’ve not always been happy about the direction that friendship was taking, but you were friends.’
‘Not any more!’ Erin snapped.
Mrs Tasker snapped back at her. ‘You’ll have your chance to speak, Erin.’ Then she went on, ‘Now, because one of you has inadvertently let something slip about the other …’
This time it was me who jumped to my feet. ‘No. That’s the whole point. I didn’t let anything slip.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate, Hannah,’ Mrs Tasker said, as if she was making things better. But this wasn’t what I wanted at all.
‘Erin has to know that I didn’t tell anyone. Honest.’
Erin tutted and sucked in her cheeks and looked out of the window.
Mrs Tasker only looked at me for a moment as if she was considering whether what I said could possibly be true. ‘Well, that is something for Erin to think about too.’ Yet I could see that she didn’t believe me. I could see that in her eyes. She didn’t blame me. She was sure it was accidentally done, but she had no doubt I had done it anyway. What chance did I have of convincing Erin?
‘Why don’t you speak to Erin now … have your say, and you, Erin, I want you to listen to all Hannah has to say without interrupting.’
I poured out my heart then, and Erin did listen. Her lips were pursed and her face was grim, but she listened.