I spoke till I had nothing else to say, till I was just repeating the same thing over and over. ‘It had to be someone else, Erin. Had to be.’
‘But who?’ Mrs Tasker asked.
My eyes flicked from Erin to the teacher, trying to convince them both. ‘I thought at first it was Lauren’s sister. She was a waitress at Erin’s sister’s wedding,’ I explained.
‘She’s deaf,’ Erin said flatly.
‘I know, but what if one of the other waitresses overheard us and she told Lauren’s sister. She could have used sign language or something. Then Lauren’s sister tells Lauren and, zoom, it’s all over the school by next day. That’s the only explanation.’
Erin didn’t say anything at first. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor. It was Mrs Tasker who spoke. ‘Well, Erin, that seems a perfectly reasonable explanation. Hannah has sworn it wasn’t her. Has she ever let you down before?’
Erin still didn’t look at me, but she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Well, are you willing to shake hands on that?’
Erin still didn’t say anything. I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Please, Erin, this has been horrible for me.’
‘Horrible … for you?’ Erin said, as if she was shocked.
‘Horrible for you too, I know that.’
Mrs Tasker leant over and touched Erin’s hand. ‘Come on, Erin. Think of all the good times you’ve had together. All the years of friendship you’ve shared.’
Erin looked at me at last. I couldn’t fathom her eyes. She held my gaze for a long time before turning to our teacher. ‘All right,’ she said. Her voice was barely a whisper.
It was as if the sun had burst into the office. ‘All right.’ Magic words. My hand was shaking as I held it out to her. Mrs Tasker nodded and smiled. ‘Go on, Erin.’
Erin took my hand. Hers was cold and clammy and limp. I shook it so hard I thought it would fall off. ‘Oh, thanks, Erin. Thanks. You won’t be sorry. I’ll be the best friend you ever had from now on.’
I knew I was on the verge of tears, felt them welling up in my eyes. But I didn’t want to cry. I was too happy to cry.
Mrs Tasker stood up and sighed. A job well done. ‘Now, you two girls run along to class. I told your teacher you’d both be a little late.’
She stood at her classroom door watching us as we walked off, side by side. I couldn’t stop babbling. ‘Oh Erin, everything’s going to be so good now. You’ll see. We’ll get Lauren back for it, don’t you worry.’
Erin stopped walking and turned to me. She glanced at Mrs Tasker’s door. It was just closing. Erin’s face twisted into an ugly grin. ‘Did you really think I believed any of the crap you were spouting in there?’
I reached out to touch her arm and she drew herself back as if I was a leper. ‘You must think my head buttons up at the back, Driscoll. Because I am no friend of yours and never will be again.’ Then she leant close to my face. ‘And we are going to get you for this. Don’t you worry. We’re going to make you sorry.’
And then she was gone, clattering down the corridor at full speed. And I knew then it was no use. I was no longer her friend. Never would be again.
It was over.
Part Two
Limbo
Chapter Twenty
The days seemed to merge into a nightmare – a nightmare I never seemed to wake from. I was literally without friends. I had never needed any others except for the Lip Gloss Girls – hadn’t bothered making any. In fact, I’d shunned most of the other girls. We all had. They weren’t good enough for any of us. Now they were all getting their own back on me. They shunned me.
‘Don’t try to be our pal now, Driscoll,’ I would be told. ‘We don’t want Erin’s cast-offs.’
That was the message whenever I tried to be friendly with anyone. I was Erin’s cast-off and nobody wanted me. I would stand silently in a corner of the yard and watch as they passed me by.
I would see Wizzie and the rest forward their text messages about me from one phone to another, giggling at me, laughing out loud at whatever was written. I was a joke. And I had no answer for them.
‘Where’s your smart mouth now?’ someone asked me one day. Yes, where was my smart mouth? I couldn’t find the joke in this at all. Didn’t know how to handle it.
I was pushed and jostled in the corridors, left to sit alone in the canteen. Always alone.
‘How does it feel to be bullied yourself?’ Nan Gates, one of the other girls in my class, asked me one day.
‘I was never a bully!’ I said to her. Yet I remembered the times we had made fun of her frizzy red hair, called her a ‘ginger’, rejected her attempts to be one of us. Had I been a bully?