word went out that Theresa was under Mardy’s protection: the persecution ceased. Theresa herself – poor, trusting Theresa – had been terribly grateful.
Only Hal knew the whole story. Not that Mardy had ever told him, but he kept his eyes open, Hal did, and he understood Mardy too well for comfort. Mardy thought it over. So Hal thought that Rachel might become another Theresa Greystoke, did he? If Mardy had still been Queen Bee, then yes – maybe. But Rachel and she were on equal terms here. The rest of the class thought little enough of either of them. That made it a fair fight, didn’t it? And it was Rachel who had started it. Mardi Gras!
The next lesson was chemistry. Outside, the sleet had turned stutteringly to snow. At first the flakes were too large to settle, falling flat on their watery faces. But a little later there was a mother-of-pearl sheen to the asphalt and on the larch tree the small twigs hung exhausted under the weight of newly-gathered ice. In thirty minutes the playground was choked with it. Silent snow. The more Mardy looked at it the more she felt that it wasn’t quite real, that the whole day had got off on the wrong foot and had better retrace its steps. She tried to concentrate on the test tube in front of her, on the blue flame from the Bunsen burner. In the distance – too distant to be made out clearly – there was a thin, whining hum. And plink – a sound like a string snapping or being plucked – and another … Water thawing and falling into pools of ice, ice breaking under its own weight and hunkering down into itself. And the burner’s furnace flame roaring …
“Ouch!”
Two rows in front of her, Rachel jumped back in her seat as a tightly-folded wad of paper bounced stingingly off her cheek. Mardy didn’t see who had thrown it. It must have flown past her own shoulder from somewhere at the back of the classroom. But from the way Rachel looked round as she bent to retrieve the paper it was clear whom she thought to blame. At her side, Hal too was peering at Mardy strangely: as if he hardly recognised her.
Rachel unfolded the paper. It was a piece of lined A4, just like the paper on a dozen pads all around the class. Just like the pad on Mardy’s own desk. As Rachel read what was written there, Mardy saw her face flush darker with embarrassment and anger. She really seemed to be on the point of tears. When she looked round again it was with an expression of such shame and such knowledge, such open dislike – that it was Mardy who turned away.
“Whatever did you write on that note?” hissed Hal.
“Nothing! I mean – it wasn’t me who threw it.”
“No?” replied Hal with frank disbelief.
“No!”
Hal crooked a smile and peered at her again with that look of strange half-recognition. “Have it your way.”
This made Mardy furious. “Why don’t you believe me? Friends should trust each other!”
For the rest of the afternoon Hal made himself very busy with chemistry notes. When the final bell rang, Mardy waited for him at their usual spot, under the larch tree in the front playground. The snow had stopped falling, had thawed a little and then frozen harder, so that the asphalt was growing a treacherous, invisible skin, with an inch or so of snow underfoot. She saw Hal at an upstairs window once, being hustled along by a group of larger boys. Five minutes later she spotted his back, already halfway down the road from school. That was odd – he must have passed right by her. Even if he wasn’t talking to her, how had she missed him?
Crunch crunch, like walkers on a gravel beach, the children left the school. Cars were waiting for many of them, lights on, moving tenderly up the road edges and away. Mardy hung back. She sketched a circle round the larch tree with her heel. She had not seen Rachel leave either and was thankful.
AT LENGTH, MARDY sighed and started up the long avenue of plane trees to the main road and the tangled streets beyond, one of which was her own. Already, the road had largely cleared. There were only a few children in sight. Some were trying to make snowballs from a fall no more than a fingernail’s depth. The distracting snow suited Mardy. She did not want to talk to anyone. Now she had another incident to ponder and for once she did not miss Hal’s company. Hal would have irritated her by telling her that her imagination was playing tricks. But Mardy suspected that a ghost had preceded her home yesterday and bought a Nut Krunch Bar from Mrs Hobson this morning. Perhaps the same ghost had been responsible for hitting Rachel with a piece of crumpled-up paper this afternoon. It was possible, she supposed. Mardy had heard of such things: poltergeists, they were called.
She had heard of other things, too. People fooling themselves, for a start. If you disliked someone the way she disliked Rachel, perhaps you might chuck something at her and then deny it – even to yourself. No one wants to think of herself as a bully, do they? And no one wants to think of herself as the kind of greedy pig who would scoff two Nut Krunch Bars in half an hour. How much easier to blame it all on a poltergeist, a double, an imposter …
By this time she was more than halfway up Bellevue Road, and nearly at Hal’s house. Perhaps she would call on him after all. She could use some of his common sense now. Hal would keep her feet on the ground, frozen toes and all.
But there in front of Hal’s front gate was a most unlikely group. Rachel Fludd herself was nearest, with her back to the street – and either side of her stood two of the Bluecoat girls, leering unpleasantly down the road at Mardy as if she had turned up on the underside of a shoe. They weren’t just standing, either – they were standing guard: feet apart and waiting (Mardy was immediately certain of it) for Mardy herself. And from one of them came yesterday’s catcall: “Mardi Gras!”
That was just the opening round. Most of it came from the Bluecoat girls, but not all. Mardy was surrounded by voices. The leaden clouds themselves were echoing back their low opinion of her.
“Lardy Mardy!”
“Pink and sweaty, legs like a Yeti, hair like a plate of cold spaghetti…”
“Where do you get your clothes from, Mardy? A tent-hire shop?”
“And who are you calling a witch?”
The last voice cut through the rest and silenced them. It silenced everything. Mardy could not help looking towards it. There was Rachel, standing alone. Gone were the Bluecoat girls, gone Rachel’s own tearful sulk. Her dark eyes were trained on Mardy like shotgun barrels.
“Never,” said Rachel, in a voice as cold as flint, “do that again. Ever.”
She stepped into the road and began to cross without once taking her eyes off Mardy. Mardy realised with a jolt that Bellevue Road was not merely growing emptier as the school traffic cleared. It was quite deserted. The plane tree avenue stretched on into the distance and ended in a shimmer of sickly, yellow light that made her think of the smoke from damp leaves. It was the same both ways. No school any more, no shops, no people. Just two interminable rows of blinkered houses. Just Mardy and Rachel.
“Where is everyone?” Mardy asked, her voice trembling, as Rachel approached her. “What have you done?”
Rachel seemed different now, as everything was different: taller, more powerful. She did not speak at first. She was staring into Mardy’s face, apparently searching there for some concealed mark or sign.
“Stand still!” she commanded – but distractedly, as if Mardy were a needle she was trying to thread, rather
