The sweat was pouring off me, but I still wasn’t scared. I was too keyed up to be scared. Grace Morgan was big. As she lumbered towards me I realised just how big. But she wasn’t fast. I lowered my head and charged at her and sent her reeling to the ground. There was another roar from the crowd. A different kind of roar this time. All of a sudden they were on my side. I could tell. They wanted me to win.
‘Behind you, Hannah!’ Someone yelled it from the crowd. I turned just in time to stop Lauren leaping on my back. I grabbed at her, spun her round and sent her tumbling on top of Grace.
Sonya was waiting for me next. She let out a scream and ran at me. Sonya’s a big girl too. And fat with it. She hit me so hard we both fell back.
I was on the ground and almost waiting for the rest of Wizzie’s gang to jump on me, but they didn’t. That wouldn’t have been a square go and they knew it. Instead it was Sonya who leapt at me again, but I held up my hands and pushed her back.
I was like a wild animal. I was on top of her. She grabbed my ears and rolled me over. I butted her in the face, and that hurt me as much as it hurt her. But at least my nose didn’t bleed. Hers did. I could see anger in her eyes as she tasted her own blood. ‘I’ll kill you for that!’
‘Try it.’
And she almost did. Anger gave her more strength. She was up and leapt at me again. This time I couldn’t dodge her or keep my balance. I began to topple with Sonya on top of me. Her blood dripped on my hair, into my face. She was ready to butt me back as she had me pinned to the ground. I was done for.
What had Wizzie done to get free of me? I did the same to Sonya, arching my back, lifting my whole body to send Sonya tumbling off me. I was on her in an instant.
The crowd were going mad, cheering and clapping. I sat astride Sonya, pinning her arms to the ground with my knees, the way I had with Wizzie. Where were the rest of the Hell Cats? I waited for them to jump in, especially Wizzie. But they didn’t. They stood together, watching me, and I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. I looked from them to the mad cheering crowd. I could see Erin and the rest, ashen-faced. They were standing well at the back. But my eyes only flicked past them.
I looked round at everyone else, relishing the moment. Watching their faces – amazed, and pleased for me too.
I lifted my hand in the air, thumbs up, then I turned it slowly so my thumb was down, just as if we were in a Roman arena and I was a gladiator.
It was to be the crowd’s decision what happened next, and they knew it.
There was a lull in the cheering, then with a roar that almost split my eardrums, almost every hand was held in the air, thumbs up.
And then they went wild.
Sonya began to struggle again. ‘Thank God for that!’ she shouted. ‘Now get off me!’
I leapt to my feet and turned to look round at everyone again. Then I took a slow bow to the cheers and the applause.
It was a wonderful moment.
I knew I had won more than a fight that day.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I got home before Mum and had my bloodstained clothes (their blood not mine, I’m glad to say) in the washing machine and dried even before she came in. I was in my pyjamas sitting in front of the TV when she first noticed my face. My eye was swollen and my cheek was covered in scratches.
‘What happened to you?’ She said it in a what’s-she-going-to-tell-me-now? kind of tone.
‘I fell in PE. Right off the wall bars.’ The lie came easily and I could see the relief in her face. She didn’t even question it.
‘Did you have a good day? Did you have any more trouble?’
‘No trouble at all. In fact, I had a brilliant day.’
She looked as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. You hear that expression all the time, but you don’t think what it really means. But I watched my mum stand straighter. Her face brightened, and I suppose for the first time I realised just how worried she must have been about me.
‘You see, sometimes your mother can do something right. That’s because I went up to the school. That’s what’s made them stop.’
And perhaps she was right. Mum going up to the school had been the thing that changed everything.
The last straw for me.
‘I think that is what made the difference, Mum,’ I told her. And she beamed at me.
‘Really?’ She looked so happy, I felt like crying. ‘I’m so glad about that.’
Mum and I had a lovely night together. She made shortbread, and she makes the best shortbread in the world, though she never believes it. We watched a horror film on video. I just knew everything was going to be different now, because I was going to make it different. Even with my mum. I understood now how you can get to such a point of despair you just want to end it, to sleep for ever. When it had happened to Mum a doctor had told me it was a cry for help. I didn’t understand what he meant then, but I did now. She had cried for help, and no one, certainly not me, had reached out to help her.