He's After Me

Chapter TWO



Next morning I wake up on the edge.

Literally.

On the edge of the bed, with Livi’s gaping, unconscious mouth exhaling stale morning breath in my face.

From the bedroom next door come Dad’s red wine snores. He polished off the first bottle when the pizzas arrived and was well into the second by the time I took myself to bed.

I couldn’t sleep. Livi was yakking away on her phone half the night trying to trace the whereabouts of some kid called Ferret who wasn’t answering his phone. Ferret! My sister was sending out a missing persons alert for a guy named after a polecat! Now she was dead to the world, exhausted by her failure to track him down.

I can’t imagine what it must it be like to care about someone that much.

I shower, dig jeans and various layers out of my bag, and go in search of breakfast. There’s not much here hiding in the cupboards, but I help myself to Jude’s seriously healthy muesli and splash skimmed milk over it. It’s like rabbit food. I can’t see my dad eating it.

And then, just to show how little you actually know someone, even if you’ve lived with them all your life, Dad comes out of his bedroom dressed in running gear. I nearly choke on my dried banana and coconut flakes. He opens the fridge, takes out the orange juice and tosses it straight back from the carton.

‘Coming for a jog?’ he asks.

I stare at him, rendered speechless by the sight of my father in very short shorts with a discernable paunch, drinking juice from a box.

‘Right then,’ he says, sounding a bit miffed, ‘see you in a bit.’ And he’s gone.

I watch transfixed through the window as he re-emerges into the square below and does a few stretches. Then he’s off, running across the road towards the harbour.

‘What you doing?’ My sister, bed-haired and pandaeyed, appears at my elbow.

‘Look.’ We stare down at him together, me still spooning dried fruit and oats into my mouth, Livi in pyjamas, yawning and scratching her armpit, as he makes his way along the side of the harbour, past the boats moored to the wall.

‘What is all that about?’ I ask wonderingly as he disappears from sight.

‘It’s The Bitch. It’s got to be. She’s told him to get rid of his belly.’

‘What does she see in him?’

‘What does he see in her, you mean!’ says Livi fiercely and I nod in agreement. But we both know what he sees in her, though we’d never admit it, not even to each other.

Livi sniffs. ‘I meant, by the way, what are you doing today?’

‘Don’t know. Going into town I guess. Meeting Zoe.’ The weekend stretches emptily before me. I can’t bear the thought of hanging round here with nothing to do. ‘I think I might go home after that.’

‘Me too. I’m not stopping here if Dad’s going to keep me locked up.’

‘You’re not a prisoner!’ I laugh, but then I sober up. ‘He’s not going to like it, you know, if both of us do a runner. He’s made plans for us.’

‘Tough. Wait for me, I won’t be long.’

But my sister takes ages, as usual, on the phone to her mates, changing her arrangements each time she talks to someone new. In the end, I get fed up with hanging about so I scrawl a note to Dad to tell him about the change of plan. I feel a bit mean, walking out on him like that.

Then I remember he walked out on us and I slam the door behind me.

At the bus stop I lean back gloomily against the shelter and pull some chewing gum from my pocket. Is this what my life has come to? A weekend with nothing to do and no one to share it with.

‘Thanks,’ says a voice and I stare in surprise at the hand outstretched before me. It’s got a shark tattoo on the wrist. I look up and my heart misses a beat. It’s him. The guy on the bus.

‘Where’s your mate?’ he asks. Then he prompts, ‘Can I have one?’

‘Cheek!’ But I drop a piece of gum obediently into his hand. He flicks it up into the air, catches it in his mouth and grins at me.

‘Doesn’t always work,’ he says modestly.

Close up, he’s about eighteen or nineteen. Not bad-looking. Pretty fit, actually. His teeth are white against his olive skin and very slightly crooked, which makes him even more attractive. His hair is dark, even darker than mine. I want to touch it.

‘Where’s your mate?’ he repeats. ‘The crazy one?’

My mate? The penny drops and so do my hopes. It’s Livi he’s after, not me.

‘Why?’ I say. ‘You interested?’

‘Might be.’ He smiles at me lazily, his eyes heavy-lidded. ‘But not as interested as I am in you.’

Unbelievably, I feel myself going red but then, thank goodness, the bus arrives and he stands back. ‘After you,’ he says and I step up on to the platform and fumble around in my bag for my bus pass and I can’t find it.

The driver is grumpy, impatient, tutting at my slowness, and my face gets hotter and hotter. I root through the contents of my bag, trying not to show my pyjamas to the world.

At last he waves me on and I make my way to a seat, my cheeks burning, hoping and dreading at the same time that the boy will come and sit beside me.

But when I sit down, he’s still standing half on, half off the platform, like he’s waiting for someone.

‘On or off?’ says the bus driver, grumpy old git that he is. ‘Make your mind up. I haven’t got all day.’

‘There’s someone running for the bus …’ he says, and steps back down on to the pavement. But his voice is cut off as the driver closes the doors on him. Through the window I can see my sister running, full-pelt, towards us. Towards him.

As the bus pulls away, Livi comes to a stumbling halt and he throws out his arms to save her.

The last thing I see, as I slump down in my seat, is the pair of them in each other’s arms, making identical, one-fingered gestures of derision at the driver and laughing hysterically.

I curse out loud and the woman in front of me turns round and gives me a look of disgust.

At the shopping centre I meet up with Zoe, my best mate, and we go for a coffee. She’s recently been dumped by Max, a guy from our A-level Sociology class, and she’s finding it really hard. We were double-dating, Zoe and Max, Ben and me. When I packed Ben in, pretty soon after, Max followed suit. I feel a bit guilty about it, actually.

She’s going on and on about him, as usual.

‘You’ve got to move on, Zo,’ I butt in when I get a chance. ‘Get over it!’

‘I can’t!’ she wails. ‘I’ve tried, but it’s no good. It’s over a month now since we split up and I still love him.’

She was in much deeper than me. I sigh deeply, trying to show a bit of understanding. ‘It’s six months since my mum and dad split up and she’s still wrecked.’

‘Really?’ Zoe stares at me in horror. ‘How does she cope?’

‘With difficulty.’

The truth is, my mother doesn’t. OK, she functions on an everyday level, but that’s all she is doing, functioning. Since Dad left her for Jude, all the life’s seeped out of her. It’s like every day she fades away a bit more like an old photograph. I’m afraid one day she’ll disappear altogether.

I will never let a guy do that to me.

‘I read in a magazine once that breaking up is a form of bereavement,’ says Zoe gloomily.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, only it’s worse in a way. Especially if the corpse is still around, chatting someone else up before your eyes.’

We go shopping to cheer ourselves up, trawling in and out of stores. Zoe spends a small fortune on random stuff, but my heart’s not in it. I don’t know what’s the matter with me today.

‘Isn’t that your sister?’ says Zoe. I follow her eyes and spot Livi, easily identifiable by her cropped, blonde hair and her loud laugh. She’s in the middle of a noisy gang of kids. I recognize a couple of them from when I was at school. Troublemakers. At least she’s not still with Bus Boy.

Zoe shakes her head in disbelief. ‘What is she doing with them?’

People are attracted to Livi like bees to a bright, beautiful flower. She stands head and shoulders above the rest of us boring bedding plants. But the trouble is, she attracts wasps too. There’s one buzzing round her now, hands everywhere, touching her every chance he gets …

Get your hands off my little sister! I scream inside.

‘Anna!’ Livi sees me and immediately detaches herself from his clutches, bounding over to greet me. I know what she’s doing, she doesn’t want me to see who she’s hanging out with, but it’s too late. The boy follows behind, hovering over her like a hornet.

‘Who’s this? Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

Livi looks nervous.

‘This is Steven. Ferret, this is my sister, Anna.’

So this is the celebrated Ferret. I study him. He’s not that tall, about the same height as her, with fair hair sticking out from beneath a black beanie. He’s quite good-looking but his face is a bit too thin, his nose too long, and his eyes too small for my taste.

‘Ferret,’ I say. ‘Suits you.’

The eyes harden. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing. It’s your name, not mine.’

Livi laughs nervously. ‘His name’s Steven Ferris. That’s why he’s called Ferret.’

Great. I’ve insulted him without even meaning to. He stares me out, pale eyes narrowed. When I drop my gaze he gives a victorious, insolent little bark of a laugh, like he’s won, and turns away.

I’m furious.

‘What are you doing with that?’ I hiss.

Livi’s face falls. ‘Loads of girls like him. He’s dead fit.’

‘No he’s not, Liv. You can do so much better than him!’

She shakes her head. ‘You don’t know him!’

‘I don’t want to know him!’

‘Get lost!’ she says and now she turns away.

‘Livi! Don’t be daft!’

‘Piss off!’ she yells at me.

Behind her, her mates burst out into shrieks of laughter.

All except Ferret, who stands there staring silently at me, a twisted, malevolent smile on his pale, pinched face.

I turn on my heel and walk away.





He watched as she disappeared down the mall with her fat friend in tow. He’d got her measure now. One of those girls who thinks she knows everything. Thinks she’s better than everyone else.

Well, you can be too clever for your own good.

He could teach her a thing or two. He could show her.