Angels Next Door Read online

  The trouble is I can’t fit in with anyone in my class. The boys, no way. They’re split into either the football or the game-geek gangs, and none of them bothers with girls unless it’s to laugh at them. As for the girls, well, all of them came from different primary schools to me and Tia, and although they’re pretty nice, they were already in their tight little cliques when they arrived at Hillcrest and have stayed that way. Of course, one clique I have no interest in ever joining is Lauren Mayhew’s. She and Joelle Hunter and Nancy Adams like to think they’re royalty in Class Y7C – ruling with sarky digs and sharp words – though me and Tia have done a pretty good job of staying under their radar so far.

  But, with no bright, shining, ever-smiling Tia to hide behind, will it stay that way?

  You know, it would be so much easier if I could just turn invisible. The superpower of invisibility; that’s what I should ask for, for my birthday …

  Thwack!!

  Half a second ago I’d been vaguely aware of the general noise of boys right behind me, playfighting, goofing around, whatever.

  Now someone – or maybe more than one someone – has stupidly staggered into me and I’m stumbling, tumbling sideways, the pavement lunging towards me alarmingly fast.

  ‘Oww …’ I groan as pain jars viciously through the elbow I’ve landed on.

  So much for invisibility. As I wince and try to catch my breath, I find myself staring up at a pack of jeering Cheshire cats.

  ‘She’s Tia’s mate, isn’t she?’ says a boy I vaguely recognize from the year above me.

  ‘What – is Tia that really pretty one?’ says another voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ says the first boy. ‘But shame … she’s leaving. She’s going to Australia or somewhere.’

  Tia isn’t leaving; she’s left.

  It’s New Zealand; not Australia.

  But I don’t come out with either of those things, because pain and embarrassment have tightened my throat so I can’t make a sound.

  Hey, boys, don’t anybody rush to help me up, I complain silently to myself instead.

  Maybe a second too soon as it happens.

  ‘Hand?’ says someone, reaching down to me.

  From my viewpoint – i.e. the pavement – I see a wide grin, with dimples either side, along with spiky dark hair and a fan of freckles across the nose and cheeks. All of that together means one thing, or one person in particular, JD, from our year, from Y7A to be exact. He’s this boy who had a bit of a crush on Tia all last half-term. She nicknamed him JD – short for Join the Dots cos of the freckles – but his real name’s Woody. Sometimes he’d catch up with us on the way to school or home and tell us endless jokes. That’s till Tia blanked him enough times that he got the message and slunk off. I felt kind of bad about it, but Tia was firm. ‘Look, if I act friendly we’ll never get rid of him, Riley!’ she’d pointed out.

  Wincing, I blink up at his smiling face. I want to trust him (I want to get up off this pavement), but what if that’s a smile at me, not for me? What if JD pulls his hand away as soon as I reach for it, as an added bit of entertainment for his Year 8 buddies – and to get back at me for Tia’s non-interest?

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lie, wishing JD would stop staring at me and mooch off with his mates instead.

  ‘If you’re fine, then I’m Robert Pattinson,’ he jokes in his usual lame way.

  Actually, that is almost funny. But, then again, is he laughing at me?

  If that’s what’s going on, then there’s no way I’m taking that hand he’s still holding out.

  ‘Looks like you’re wasting your time, mate,’ one of the Year 8s says, sounding bored of the situation now.

  ‘Yeah, come on,’ says another, slapping JD’s shoulder. ‘If she doesn’t want your help, then leave her alone.’

  And so that’s what JD does – leaves me alone – and trundles away with the rest of the gang of lads.

  But that’s the problem, I admit to myself as I lie here on the cold, hard ground.

  It doesn’t matter about those words I imagine my mum saying. It’s never going to be all right. Cos it’s only ever been Tia and Riley, Riley and Tia.

  I just don’t know how to be alone.

  How do I be only me?

  I hadn’t planned on having a very good day today, but it seems to be getting more awful by the minute.

  Tugging at the bottom of my top, I squeak the changing-room door open, just about hearing the general chit-chatter of the class above the sound of my thumping heart.

  ‘Ah, Riley!’ booms Mrs Zucker. ‘At last, you’ve finally joined …’

  It’s not just our PE teacher’s voice that trails off. The chit-chatter has died away, and there’s a stupefied silence in its place.

  ‘Pfffft!’ The first snort comes from Lauren Mayhew. No surprises there.

  ‘Fnarrrrr-a-hur-a-hur!’

  I don’t know who that was – one or other of the boys. But it doesn’t exactly matter, not when there’s an immediate wall of laughter so loud it’s slamming into me, hard as bricks.

  Great. Everyone’s finding me completely hilarious this morning, thanks to Hazel putting the wrong newly washed gym kit in the wrong bag. Which means at some point today, Dot will be giggling her way through star-jumps and trampette bounces at her primary school while wearing an age-twelve Hillcrest Academy white polo shirt.

  With trembling hands, I tug again at the way, way too short hem of the age-five-to-seven Peppa Pig top I’m squashed into. I lower my eyes from the twenty-six classmates who are roaring like I’m the funniest thing since a You’ve Been Framed clip of someone cycling into a wall. I immediately regret it, since it means my gaze is now on the stray and slightly grubby pair of XL boys’ football shorts that Mrs Zucker found for me in the store-room.

  ‘Actually, no … that’s not going to work, is it?’ Mrs Zucker says, walking over to me and frowning. ‘I thought we could get away with you wearing that top, since you girls tend to like your clothes tight, but …’

  She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. The top is so small the sleeves are cutting off the circulation at the top of my arms and a distorted Peppa Pig is stretched so fiercely she’s flattening what little chest I’ve got.

  ‘Listen, Riley,’ says Mrs Zucker, raising her voice to be heard above the continuing echoing cackles. ‘Go and have a look in the lost-property box beside Mr Bradley’s office. See if there’s anything you can grab out of there instead.’

  A bit of pride, maybe, since I’ve lost all mine? I think bleakly as I pad out of the gym into the cool, empty corridor.

  The annexe is thankfully quiet – there’s nothing here except the gym, the changing rooms and the site manager’s office, so there’s no chance of any passing students catching a glimpse of my joke gym kit.

  I take a deep, juddering breath, put my forehead against the pale green wall and squeeze my eyes tight closed, willing myself not to cry.

  ‘All right, Riley?’ a gentle voice suddenly asks me.

  My head tilts up and I see Mrs Sharma, my form teacher, coming out of the site manager’s office. She’s smiley, small and very, very round.

  ‘I’ve just left a note on Mr Bradley’s desk about that tap that’s leaking in my classroom,’ she says, yanking the stiff office door shut with one hand while the other rests on the ledge of her can’t-miss-it baby bump. ‘For some reason his office phone isn’t working, so I had to walk all the way along here, which isn’t easy in my condition! Hey – are you OK, Riley?’ she says, clearly spotting something’s up.

  That’s it.

  That’s all I need – someone being nice makes me well up again.

  ‘Here, come on into the office … Mr Bradley’s going to have a first-aid kit somewhere in here, and we can have a chat,’ says Mrs Sharma, wrestling the stiff door open, helped by a determined bang of her hip.

  Lovely Mrs Sharma. It was my grazed elbow – from my fall on the way to school this morning – that she’d noticed at first. But she’s pretty smart
and kind and I think she’s figured out that it’s not the only thing troubling me.

  Mrs Sharma shoves the door closed behind us, leads me to a chair and bundles a tissue into my hand, just in case.

  ‘Ah, here we are! Now let’s see if we can find you a plaster,’ she says, crouching down beside a small wooden cabinet with a green cross on it. ‘And while I fix you up maybe we can have a chat about anything else going on with you, Riley?’

  Oh yeah? And what can I tell her exactly?

  Please, Miss, I got thwacked to the ground by a bunch of boys.

  Please, Miss, I’ve just been humiliated in front of my entire class.

  Please, Miss, today I lost my best friend forever, forever.

  Please, Miss, I don’t think this day could get any worse …

  ‘It’s T-T-Ti–’ I hiccup as tears threaten again. But, before I can splutter out my friend’s name, Mrs Sharma speaks. Sort of.

  ‘Ohhhh …!’

  Huh?

  My form teacher has been crouched down in the same position for a while now. I can see she has a plaster in her hand – so why isn’t she getting up? And why did she just say ‘Ohhhh …!’ in that funny way?

  ‘Huh-nnnnnggg …’

  Huh-nnnnnggg?

  I don’t like the sound of that.

  And I don’t like the way she’s just leaned forward, dropping on to her knees and flopping her head on to the top of the first-aid cabinet.

  ‘Mrs Sharma?!’ I say in alarm.

  Nothing.

  I hurtle out of my chair and tentatively go to touch her on the arm, scared that she might have just gone and died on me.

  ‘Riley …’ Mrs Sharma groans, making me jump.

  Of course I’m pleased she’s not dead (that would REALLY make this day immensely worse), but I’m a bit freaked out that she’s said my name in a growly voice like she’s possessed or something.

  ‘The baby … I think it’s coming. You need to get help.’

  Before she’s finished the word ‘help’, I’m already picking up the phone on the desk, ready to ring the school office.

  Big problem: I hear the dead tone and remember Mrs Sharma saying she hadn’t been able to get through to Mr Bradley’s phone.

  I’ve no sooner clattered the phone back down on the desk than in one bound of my flippy-flappy XL shorts I’m clutching the doorknob – the very stiff doorknob that Mrs Sharma was struggling with a minute ago – but it’s got absolutely no intention of turning.

  ‘Excuse me, but do you have your mobile on you, Mrs Sharma?’ I say, feeling beads of sweat break out on my forehead as I struggle with the jammed door.

  ‘No …’ she wheezes weakly, caught up in her own struggle. ‘’S in my locker, in – huh! – the staffroom.’

  We’re both gasping, for our own different reasons. This isn’t good.

  You know, I hate the endless TV medical dramas that Hazel makes us watch (so she can criticize them when a nurse bandages someone wrongly, or snogs a doctor behind a pile of cardboard bedpans), but something from those telly programmes must have seeped into my head.

  ‘Your breathing … you’ve got to do quick little pants, Mrs Sharma,’ I tell her, hoping I sound like I know what I’m talking about. ‘Those’ll help you get through the pain and keep calm.’

  At the word ‘calm’, the doorknob comes away in my hand and clatters on to the floor.

  That’s when I lose it.

  ‘HELP!’ I yell, slamming my hands on the glass. ‘SOMEBODY HELP US!!!’

  My yells will be heard by absolutely no one, obviously, since the corridor is empty and the thundering roar of my class as they cheer each other round the timed circuit in the gym would drown me out anyway.

  ‘HEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!’ I yell at the top of my voice and hammer the glass till it vibrates, just cos I don’t know what else to do.

  With my eyes scrunched tight, the white dots swirl, and I can hear it – the soothing voice – above my own stressed-out yell.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Riley.’

  The voice: it doesn’t sound as if it’s in my head any more.

  This is weird, seriously weird. It sounds faint and buzzy, as if it’s coming from the useless out-of-order phone I chucked on the table a second ago …

  At the same time a breeze that smells of cut grass and summer skies spins round me, cooling my forehead, sure as a cold, damp cloth.

  I open my eyes wide, my heart thundering even faster.

  I’m imagining a voice on a broken phone? And a welcome breeze in a windowless box-room-of-an-office?

  OK, so I’m flipping out here, but I’ve got to pull myself together, for Mrs Sharma’s sake, as well as my own. Opening my mouth, I yell desperately for help again – and find myself staring face to startled face with someone on the other side of the glass door panel.

  Mr Bradley the site manager is carrying a cup of coffee and a large screwdriver.

  He thought he was coming back to his quiet tucked-away office to fix a bad-tempered doorknob and instead has found it’s turned into a combined maternity ward and madhouse.

  But thankfully – by the magic of a stiff-but-working knob on the outside of the door – Mr Bradley is in the room in a split-second and instantly assessing the mayhem, while I kneel down by a wincing, panting-by-order Mrs Sharma.

  ‘Ambulance, please!’ our site manager barks into the mobile he’s just pulled out of his back pocket.

  ‘Aaaarghhh!’ howls Mrs Sharma as a contraction grips her, and in turn she grips hard – really hard – at my hair.

  Biting my lip to stop myself crying out, I wonder if today can get any more bizarre.

  And then Mrs Sharma unclenches her fist, and a handful of my mousy-brown hair lands on my too-tight Peppa Pig T-shirt.

  Well, I guess there’s my answer …

  My sort-of-stepsister has an impressive selection of pyjamas, and likes to get in character depending on which set she’s wearing.

  In her floaty fairy nightie, she’ll tiptoe and flap around the house. In her PJs with the glittery pony on the front, she’ll canter and whinny (quite annoying when you’re trying to do your homework). And in her tiger all-in-one? Well, prepare to be pounced on.

  Right now, Dot’s chosen to put on the fairy nightie, which she’s accessorized with a sparkly plastic wand. She’s also insisted on having her bedtime story with me, in my room, at 4.30 p.m., because she feels like it. And I said fine, why not, since:

  a) I’m always kind of charmed by Dot’s randomness, and

  b) it sounded like a lot more fun than the geography homework I was meant to be doing.

  ‘Big Duck quacked to Little Duck, “I love you!” ’ I read aloud, while pushing the wand away so it doesn’t poke me in the eye.

  Apart from one lethal wand-waving arm, Dot is snuggled under my duvet, not listening to a word I’m saying, I’m pretty sure.

  I try a test. ‘And then Little Duck quacked to Big Duck, “I love YOU as much as porridge!” ’

  Not a comment, not a twitch. Dot knows this book inside out, and knows there’s nothing about porridge in there (just like I know porridge makes Dot gag).

  ‘And Big Duck quacked to Little Duck, “I love you better than snot!” ’

  Still nothing. Nothing except the sense that I’m being stared at, hard.

  ‘Then Little Duck took out a really big gun and –’

  ‘Does it hurt?’ Dot interrupts.

  I look round and see her gazing at me with her owlish brown eyes. ‘You mean this?’ I ask, holding up the elbow which now has a padded dressing on it, thanks to Hazel. ‘Or this?’

  I point to the pound-coin-sized bald patch on the side of my head, where Mrs Sharma hauled the chunk of hair out.

  ‘No, not them. I mean having a baby,’ says Dot, gently pressing a fingertip to the hairless spot.

  ‘Um, a little, I guess,’ I reply, thinking about the total agony Mrs Sharma was in as the ambulance team came to her rescue.

  Dot is comple
tely blown away by what happened today. She hasn’t shut up since she found out. (‘I can’t believe you borned a baby, Riley!’ ‘Dot, I didn’t “born” a baby. I didn’t even really help that much.’ ‘Was it scary seeing the baby come out?’ ‘I told you: the ambulance lady helped Mrs Sharma have her baby girl. I wasn’t allowed to stay in the office.’ ‘But did you see it coming out just a bit?’ ‘No.’ ‘Even just a little bit?’ ‘No!’)

  Once Dot climbed into (my) bed I thought she’d finally run out of questions, but obviously not.

  ‘I’m never going to have any babies, ever,’ says Dot with a shudder. ‘I was telling Mummy that when I’m as old as her I’m going to get puppies, and they can play with Alastair!’

  I immediately picture the dog basket in the hall downstairs, which contains a tartan blankie, an unchewed chew toy, a big stick and no dog. That’s because Dot’s darling pet happens to be made of wood.

  Yes, wood.

  Alastair is a hunk of light-as-air driftwood that we found on Whitsea beach back in the summer holidays. It had a whole bunch of knobbles on it that sort of looked like legs and ears and a tail if you squinted at it funny. Dot had cooed and cuddled it the whole car journey home, so back at the house I stuck on some googly eyes and drew a nose and sticky-out tongue in black marker pen. She was so thrilled that she saved up her pocket money to buy ‘Alastair’ a collar and lead and all the other doggy essentials.

  ‘Will you get a prize?’ Dot interrupts my thoughts.

  ‘What do you mean, a “prize”?’ I frown.

  ‘Like a medal, for helping born your teacher’s baby!’

  ‘Dot, I didn’t help Mrs Sharma give birth!’ I tell her yet again.

  I wish she’d give up on the whole baby drama; I’ve had enough of it now. This morning everybody piled out of the gym when they got wind of the ambulance parked outside. Then they crowded round me and my flappy shorts, firing question after question. (All except Lauren, Joelle and Nancy, who hung back and whispered behind their hands, cos that’s their style.)

  It went on the whole day, with kids I hardly knew coming up and quizzing me, or pointing at me from a distance. Brave, confident Tia Adjaye would have been able to handle all the staring and the gossiping, but not wimpy lip-’n’-nail-biting Riley Roberts.