kept coming, though, the whites of his eyes shining in the changing light.
The people sitting around me looked at him. Someone shushed. A woman on the row behind said, ‘’Scuse us, d’you mind?’
But he didn’t. He didn’t mind at all. He just stood there, staring at me. Then he said, ‘Come out’, like I’d better do it quick.
There was another angry shush.
He said, ‘I’ve got a message from Alice.’
I thought, why would Alice have a message for me? But I stood up anyway. I squeezed past the people, spilling my popcorn, saying sorry, thinking maybe she wants me to sit with them; would she want me to sit with them?
Then suddenly, before I was even properly out in the aisle, he grabbed my arm up near the top and pulled me so my ear was right up against his mouth. ‘Leave her alone, yeah?’ he breathed. The words were hot. They filled my ear and spilled down my neck. Flecks of his spit hit my cheek. ‘You’re really creepin’ her out.’ Then he tightened his grip even more, making me cry out, and hissed, ‘Got it?’
I nodded quickly, just wanting him to let go, then as soon as he did, I stumbled away up the steps towards the exit door at the back. My throat and chest felt like they were being squashed. I turned, afraid he was following me, but he was gone, jogging back down to the others.
I put the popcorn on the floor, whispering to help myself think which pocket my inhaler was in, and reached out to steady myself on the back of an empty seat. And there you were, on the far side near the wall, your face pale like milk in the darkness, your eyes staring blankly ahead at the screen.
Strawberry Tarts
‘Lesbo,’ Dan said when I walked into Maths on Monday.
Robert put his arms up high, his eyes wide like a ghoul and said, ‘Oh no, it’s the Lesbian Psycho-Stalker!’
I ignored them (obviously) as well as the death-rays Katy kept firing at me from across the classroom. Aren’t bullies meant to get bored and leave you alone if you ignore them? That’s what adults tell you, but it’s a lie. I’ve been ignoring them all my life. They only go away if they go to a different school.
The morning went on like that, with looks and insults. I went to the gym in first break. I knew no one would look for me there. I sat on one of the low wooden benches along the wall eating Maryland Chocolate Chip Cookies because the corner shop was out of Hobnobs, and for some reason Marcy Edwards popped into my head.
Marcy was a girl in my year who got anorexia. She got so thin she had to go into hospital. I know it’s a stupid thing to say, and that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but when she collapsed in PE and the ambulance came and she was carried into it on a stretcher, I wished, wished, wished it was me. It’s not fair that you can get too thin to go to school but not too fat.
I wondered what she was doing now, like if she was lying in a hospice bed somewhere, looking out through a big window onto lawns with bushes and trees, with chocolates and flowers on her bedside table, or if she was in Paris twirling round one of those fancy lamp posts with a million-dollar modelling contract. Or maybe she was dead. Maybe they couldn’t make her eat, like Dr Bhatt can’t make me stop eating, and she died. I thought any of those things would be better than being me.
I couldn’t avoid Katy at lunch, though. She was eyeballing me the whole time, then the second I got up with my tray, she got up too – then Sophie, Beth and Alice. I glanced over at Mr Holland who was on duty, but he was looking the other way.
They followed me down the corridor, through the changing room and out past the music hut, not saying anything but sort of closing in on me. I started whispering, hoping they couldn’t hear, then when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I turned round and said, ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Ooh, don’t like being stalked, then, Doner?’ Katy said.
‘Lesbian,’ Beth added.
I looked at Alice. She was watching me, but not like the others. Her eyes weren’t sparkling with the same viciousness. I don’t think she even wanted to be there.
‘I wasn’t stalking anyone,’ I said.
‘You’re a liar,’ Katy spat, leaning in. She twisted her face at me. ‘I saw you. In the window of Gap upstairs in the kids’ department, staring down at Alice like the saddo you are. You make me sick.’
‘Alice was scared,’ Sophie said.
‘Alice is scared,’ Katy cut in. ‘Jesus, I’d be scared too. Look at you! You’re a freak. You’re disgusting.’
Tears stung my eyes. Not because of what they were saying. I didn’t care what they said. They’re idiots, and I’d heard it all before anyway. It was because Alice was there.
‘Leave me alone,’ I said and I walked back past them. I thought one of them’d shove me, but they didn’t – they let me through – and for a second I thought I’d got away.
But then Katy said, ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ and I heard her shoes scuffing the concrete as she ran up behind me.
I turned, but too late, crying out as her fingers stabbed into my neck, in the place where it kills, my knees giving way. I grabbed for her jumper, but she threw my arm off going, ‘Eurgh’, so I fell onto my hands.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ I said, standing up again. ‘I was trying to protect her! There’s a man . . .’
Then she gobbed – right in my eye where she’d aimed it. ‘Just fuck off,’ she said. ‘Leave us alone. Leave Alice alone.’
After I’d rinsed my eye in the toilets, I left. I just walked out the school gates. I couldn’t stay, especially not for PE where Mr Faraday wouldn’t care if they carried it on.
I crossed to the bus stop over the road. I wanted to go home, but Gary might be there and I couldn’t face him. So I thought I’d go into town to kill the time, calm down a bit. I thought I’d get myself a Yog in the shopping centre, or some churros with hot chocolate sauce that smell so good it makes you want to empty your pockets on the spot. If I’m ever rich (which obviously I won’t be), I’ll have to live somewhere they don’t make churros or I’ll end up so fat I’ll be like those people that can’t even get up anymore and have to lie on their beds staring at the ceiling till the day they die.
I sat in the bus shelter and tried to blank Alice from my mind – how she’d looked when Katy spat. I couldn’t do it, though. I kept seeing her face over and over – the shock in her eyes as her mouth opened wide, the laugh stifled behind her hand – so I only saw the bus at the last second, just as it was about to fly past. I stuck out my hand.
It lurched to a stop, squealing and bouncing on its wheels.
The driver threw his arms up when I got on, like to ask is this how I get my kicks, hanging round bus stops hailing buses at the last second, and when I got my pass out he wouldn’t look at it. He jammed his foot on the accelerator so I had to grab for the pole.
I went upstairs where it was empty and looked out through the scratched plastic window at the trees and the people,
