world had been sucked into another dimension where everything moved in silent, super-slow motion.
‘She doesn’t know, Miss,’ Robert said. ‘She’s a kebab’ (said like Shish a kebab). Miss Frances didn’t laugh, even though I’m sure she found it quite amusing. She didn’t want Robert stealing her spotlight. She folded her arms till she had everyone’s attention again, then said, ‘Do you have any opinions about anything, Yasmin?’
I stopped twirling my biro. It’s chewed, the plastic split halfway to the tip and the blue bit that fits in the end isn’t there (I’m a chewer as well as a freak). I thought about giving my opinion that her drawn-on eyebrows make her look like she’s a member of an enemy alien race that’s managed to infiltrate the education system. Then I thought about giving my opinion about you – about how you were watching our school and had your sights set on Alice Taylor and that, if I was asked, I’d say one day pretty soon you might even take her.
I don’t think I realised till that second that I did think you were going to take her. I knew it then, though. I knew the way you’d looked at her was never just looking. It was wanting. I bet it was wanting in a way you’d never wanted anything before. Like you’d never seen anything so lovely, never even dreamt about having anything quite that good – being able to touch her hair, slide your hands beneath her crisp white shirt.
Anyway, luckily for you I didn’t say anything. No one would’ve believed me in any case. I’d probably have been sent to Miss Ward, the Head, who’d have said something like I’ve told you about telling lies before, haven’t I, Yasmin? Which she has, several times. Instead, I looked around. Everyone was staring at me and I realised they were all waiting for me to answer Miss Frances’s question about having opinions. Dan sniggered.
‘No?’ I said. It came out like a question, like I didn’t know whether I had any opinions or not.
The whole class fell about then, and even though I couldn’t care less, I felt my face burn. I probably looked at Alice without thinking, instinctively, to see if she was laughing with the rest of them.
She wasn’t. She was the only one that wasn’t. She was just looking at me over her shoulder, her green eyes sort of observing me.
I thought maybe in some parallel universe or via telepathy she’d heard my opinion about what you were going to do and that she’d understood somehow that I was going to save her, so I smiled. A small, secret smile. And even though she frowned and wrinkled her nose up before she turned away, I knew she’d felt it too – the connection.
I’ve kept Alice’s steady green eyes in my head ever since. I still think of them even now – usually when I’m alone in the house, doing something ordinary like wiping the worktop or changing the sheets on the bed. They appear as suddenly as they did that day in English, and float about the house with me, watching me wherever I go, whatever I do.
Anyway, that day after school, I didn’t know Alice’s eyes would watch me forever, so I concentrated all my efforts on not losing them – on keeping them there in my head. It was like a self-induced trance. I didn’t speak to anyone and ate dinner gazing somewhere beyond the telly, ignoring Gary pointing his knife at my plate and having a go at Mum for putting too much mash on it, saying, ‘You’re not doing her any favours you know,’ and moving along the sofa without a word when Mum patted me to budge up, all the while only hearing things like they were far away and only seeing Alice’s green eyes watching me, watching me, watching . . .
When the six o’clock news came on, I went up to my room. Mum had closed the curtains and it was nice and cosy. I shut the door, switched on my giant lava lamp and took Alice’s Box out of my bedside cabinet. It’s square like a cube and gold and probably had chocolates in it to start with. For years it had my hair things in, like clips and scrunchies, but I stopped wearing them when I went to senior school and threw them away.
The first thing I put in it – the thing that made it Alice’s Box – was a piece of green foil that went round a snack she’d had at break. That was in Year 7 when we were all new. It was a nice green, sort of smoky. I’d watched her lay it on her French book and smooth it carefully outwards from the middle with her fingertips. I don’t know if she meant to leave it behind, but when everyone’d gone and I’d slid it carefully between the pages of my textbook, I imagined she had. I imagined it was a secret message – her way of telling me she’d be my friend if she could, if Katy would let her.
I started keeping other things of Alice’s I found after that. Not any old thing. I didn’t want her used tissues or empty crisp packets out of the bin – just things that were nice, or personal to her. Apart from the green foil, which was special because it was the first thing, I loved the heart: Alice’s heart. She drew it. If I try and describe it, it won’t sound anywhere near as lovely as it was, so you’ll have to imagine the black lines, finer than cat hairs, swirling in and out and around each other. She was amazing at art, better than anyone. It was the way she saw things, I think, like she wasn’t just looking, but feeling them too.
The thing in Alice’s Box that you’d probably think was the weirdest was one of her trainer socks. For a few days I wasn’t sure myself if it should go in, but then because I liked holding it and smelling it, I decided it should. It didn’t smell of feet, if that’s what you think (even though she’d worn it) – just a soft cottony smell.
I got a nice feeling when I looked at her things, when I held them. They made me feel calm. I’d whisper to start with – just words, her name, things I’d like to say to her – turning and touching whatever I was holding till I got so calm I stopped needing to whisper, stopped needing to breathe, even. Till everything floated away and it was just me and her.
After I put Alice’s Box away, I took the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Turkish Delight out of my bedside drawer. I broke off a row, broke that in half, then put both bits in my mouth and lay back on the duvet. I let the chocolate melt slowly across the roof of my mouth and held my eyelids almost closed so I was looking through my lashes. That way, the galaxy that Gary painted on my ceiling before Mum and me moved in two years ago looked more convincing. I think he forgot I was thirteen and not eight when he did it, but I suppose it was nice of him. He didn’t have to.
I thought about how it’d be when you took Alice – where I’d be when it happened. I imagined myself walking into English after lunch break (which would make it a Friday). I notice that Alice isn’t at her desk. Everything’s normal apart from that; everyone’s messing around. Katy’s the first to act any different, looking up at the clock that’s saying it’s two minutes past and calling across to Sophie, Where’s Alice? Miss Francis comes in then. Everyone settles down and then she asks, Where’s Alice? I look out of the window but of course you’re not there. Nobody’s there. Katy says she was with Alice at lunch. She went back to get her coat after the bell, she says. She left it by the tennis court. Miss Frances starts the lesson, reading from a book. She’s distracted, though, and ten minutes later she glances up at the clock and checks her watch. She tells us to carry on reading, that she’ll be back in one minute, and leaves the room.
I thought about how you didn’t know I even existed, which gave me a nice feeling, like that even though you thought you were the one in control of things, you weren’t because I was. I was in charge. I could save Alice. I thought if I told anyone what you were going to do, they wouldn’t believe me, but that if I found out more about you, I could tell the police when the time came . . . when you took her. I thought I might even catch you in the act, if you tried to take her while we were at school. I thought I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.
Either way, whether I was there or not, I’d still be the one that saved her. I’d be a heroine – Alice’s heroine – and afterwards
