Worse Than Boys(43)

My first fight alongside the Hell Cats. I didn’t want to let them down. Yet I was scared. What kind of a fight would this be? They came from Wizzie’s estate, the hardest in town. Dirty fighters? Would Wizzie produce that famous knife of hers? Would they have knives too?

Wizzie swaggered up ahead of us, pushed herself right against them. ‘Sorry, I never saw you there. You’ve lost that much weight, Tilda. Have you been on a diet?’

It was the last thing I expected her to say. Lauren squeezed my arm to keep me quiet.

Tilda narrowed her eyes. ‘You winding me up, Wizzie?’

Tilda looked as if she ate a diet of chips, chocolate and cream cakes. I was trying to keep my face straight. Lauren joined in. ‘Right enough, Tilda. I can see it myself. You’ve definitely lost weight.’

Tilda tried not to smirk. She turned to her mates. ‘I told you that doughnut diet was workin’. C’mon, lassies.’ They all followed her, glaring at us as they went.

‘I thought we were in for a fight there,’ I whispered.

‘Wi’ Tilda?’ Wizzie said. ‘Not worth the effort. We could beat them easy.’

Wizzie waited till we’d turned a corner, out of sight of Tilda and her mates, before she bent over and roared with laughter. ‘That Tilda is thick as a brick. Lost weight! She looks as if she swallowed a balloon.’

We were all laughing then, except for Grace. ‘I did really think she looked thinner,’ she said, and that only made us laugh all the more.

So we walked and laughed, me mostly with relief. And I felt good.

And that was the first night I met the Black Widows.

I saw them striding it out through the centre as if they owned the place. Older than us, they were all dressed in black. Even their lips were painted black.

Wizzie began to wave wildly at them. ‘My mates from up the estate,’ she said.

One of them waved back and Wizzie swaggered over to talk to them.

‘Who on earth is that?’ I turned to ask Lauren. Her face was grim. ‘They look as if somebody dug them up from the grave.’

‘They call themselves the B-Black Widows,’ Sonya said.

I almost laughed at that. The Black Widows indeed! Lauren saw my smile. She shook her head. ‘They’re nothing to laugh at, Hannah. They’re really bad. I wish Wizzie would keep away from them.’

‘They live on Wizzie’s street. It’s hard for her to keep away from them,’ Grace said, watching Wizzie closely.

I looked over at Wizzie too. She was laughing with these other girls, as if she was one of them, their mate. As if she was trying to impress them.

A moment later, she came walking back to us. ‘They are such a laugh. Bold as brass.’

Lauren wasn’t smiling. ‘You don’t want to have anything to do wi’ them, Wizzie. They’re a bad lot.’

‘No, they’re alright. Honest.’ She dared us to argue with her. None of us did.

Except me, of course. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. ‘Is that them away back to the graveyard?’

Wizzie looked at me, ready for an argument. I grinned. Suddenly, she slapped me on the back and grinned too. ‘Very funny.’





Chapter Thirty-Nine


‘I wish I had the money to go to the pictures,’ Grace complained as we passed the cinema. ‘But I’m skint till Friday.’

‘I can give you a loan of money, Grace,’ Sonya said.

‘Should tell you,’ Wizzie said to me, ‘if you want anything, ask Sonya – generous to a fault. Always the first to offer.’ She blew a bubble. ‘Don’t ask me. I’m tight.’

‘Not tight, Wizzie.’ Lauren squeezed her arm. ‘Just usually skint.’

‘That was a nice thing to say, Wizzie, thanks,’ Sonya said without a stutter. I’d noticed Sonya hardly ever stuttered when she was alone with us. I was sure half the time she did it deliberately to wind everyone up.

But Lauren had told me different. ‘It’s only when she talks to other people, she gets nervous.’

‘Nothing on at the pictures anyway, Grace,’ Wizzie complained. She pointed at the posters. ‘Only some daft girlie picture.’

I was glad I’d kept my mouth shut. I had been just about to say I wanted to see that daft girlie picture. It was the kind of film the Lip Gloss Girls always made a point of going to see. ‘Girl Power!’ Erin would yell as we marched into the cinema.

Now I saw how stupid we must have looked. Girl Power indeed. No wonder they called us the Lip Gloss Girls. The Hell Cats didn’t need to go to girlie films. There was nothing girlie about them.

Out of uniform, Lauren dressed in the weirdest outfits. Tonight she was wearing a battered leather jacket passed down from her sister, and bright yellow cropped trousers. Her hair looked as if she’d slept in it, and she had it tied up with assorted baubles of all colours. ‘I like to look funky,’ she said.