Worse Than Boys(3)
‘We wouldn’t grass on them either, Heather,’ I told her.
‘Wouldn’t we?’ She still didn’t get it.
‘No. But we’d get them back for it later.’
‘And that’s what they’ll do?’
I sometimes forgot that Heather hadn’t been in primary school with me and Erin and Rose. She had only become friends with us when we’d all come up to Cameron High. She was new to our crowd, new to the Lip Gloss Girls.
I admit I preferred to think of us as the Lip Gloss Girls, because when we weren’t called that, we were usually just known as Erin’s crowd, and I knew even then I didn’t like that. I would have liked everyone to think of us as Hannah’s crowd instead.
It was Erin who answered Heather’s question. ‘They’ll be planning their revenge already,’ she said. ‘So just watch your back.’
Zak Riley passed by then. I think he’d been listening all along. Zak was in our class, always winding us up. He had a mop of dark hair and he thought he was cool. Zak would never be in any gang. He thought gangs were stupid. ‘You lot are unbelievable. Lassies fighting. Honestly. Will you never grow up?’
He had a cheek. He was short, with bags of attitude and one of those faces you just want to punch.
‘I mean, come on, girls. Peace on earth starts here. You lot just want to fight. It’s boys that are supposed to do all the fighting.’ He looked at me. ‘Hey, Hannah, have you ever been mistaken for a boy?’
‘No,’ I said at once. ‘Have you?’
That sent my friends into a fit of the giggles.
Zak always got my back up. He was mouthy and lived on the same dark estate at the edge of town where Wizzie lived. He would fit in well in Wizzie’s world. I looked round at his nerdy friends. ‘I know we could beat you with our hands tied behind our backs.’
‘You wouldn’t need to do that,’ Zak went on. ‘One look at your face would be enough to send me running back to my mammy.’
I’d had enough of talking to him. ‘Just tell your girlfriend, Wizzie, we’ll be watching out for her from now on.’
He turned to his pals. ‘Wizzie, my girlfriend! Ha! I’d rather kiss a tarantula.’
Zak always had a crowd of friends gathered round him, ready to laugh at his feeble jokes.
‘That wee guy really annoys me,’ I said as they moved off.
But we soon forgot about Zak Riley and Wizzie and any trouble that was coming. There were too many other things on our minds.
Erin’s sister, Avril, was getting married and we had all been invited to the wedding. Something wonderful to look forward to and much more exciting than anything else.
Chapter Three
We all gathered at Erin’s house that night to admire her in her bridesmaid’s dress. Erin lived in a tenement block just a few streets away from me – a roomy flat with ornate cornices on the high ceilings, and polished ceramic tiles lining the entrance close. I lived in a tenement block too, but not half so classy as Erin’s.
Her dress was the colour of burnt gold, and as she posed in front of the mirror with the bedside lamps shining on her strawberry blonde hair she looked to me like some kind of sun princess.
‘You suit that colour so well,’ I told her.
She twirled and the colour seemed to shimmer around her. Erin’s hair had glints of gold in it, anyway. No mousey brown for Erin. There was nothing mousey about Erin Brodie. She glowed.
Heather jumped up and started twirling beside her. ‘This is the first real wedding I’ve ever been to. My sister went to the Bahamas to get married and nobody could afford to go. I think that’s why she went. She doesn’t like any of us.’
We all laughed. It seemed we all had family problems. Rose’s mum and dad had split up and she spent her time between both of them. Though she seemed quite happy with the arrangement. ‘They’re both trying to win me round to their side. I get presents all the time. It’s great.’
Erin was the only one of us who seemed to have the perfect family. Her mum and dad were always hugging and kissing each other, her two sisters, her brother or anyone else who was close by. Erin was the adored youngest child. The whole family doted on her. Her mother hovered around us when we were in her house. In fact, her mother was a mother hen to all of us. I thought Erin’s mum was great. She was always boosting her children up, telling them how clever they were, how pretty, how well they had done. Maybe that was why they all seemed so sure of themselves.
No wonder, I thought, Erin never wanted to sleep over with any of us. She always had such fun at home. ‘Mum would miss me if I stayed over with any of you,’ she would say whenever we would suggest a sleepover. And none of us ever stayed with her either. With three sisters and her brother in the house there was no room for guests. Rose never asked. Heather would have loved to have stayed over with her. I felt she hero-worshipped Erin a bit too much. But it never happened.