Sugar and Spice

“Haven’t got one.”

“Well, get one!”

“Don’t know where they are.”

“What d’you mean, you don’t know where they are? They’re where they always are! Th —”

“Oh, Ruth, just go and get her one!” said Mum. “And scrape Kez’s toast for her while you’re at it.”

I’m frequently surprised that my legs aren’t worn to stumps. I know Mum can’t do everything, but I do occasionally wish that I could have been Child Number Two instead of Child Number One. I don’t think that being Child Number One has very much going for it.

In spite of fetching hankies and scraping toast and collecting Dad’s breakfast tray and getting the tiresome trio into their shoes and coats while Mum saw to Dad, I still managed to reach school before the bell. My stomach did this clenching thing as I turned into Parkfield Road and saw it there, waiting for me, like a great grey prison.

There’s this wire mesh stuff over the windows, to stop them from being broken, and the walls are always covered in graffiti. Every term the graffiti’s removed and every term it comes back again. I think some graffiti’s quite pretty and I don’t know why people object to it. But the stuff on our school walls is mostly just ugly, same as on our block of flats. If Mum’d seen them she would’ve known why I hated school so much, but Mum had enough to cope with, what with Dad, and work, and the tiresome trio, so she hardly ever went to parents’ evenings. Actually, I don’t think many other parents did, either. They would’ve found it too depressing, not to mention a total waste of time. You know those tables that they print, saying which schools have done best and which have done worst? Well, my school was one of the ones that did worst. It always did worst. It was the pits.

I was about to go slinking off down a side street and give the playground time to clear when someone called out, “Hi, Ruth! Wait for me!” and Karina Koh came huffing up the road. I obediently stopped and waited, cos it would’ve been rude not to, and also I wouldn’t have wanted her to feel hurt, but I can’t say that my heart exactly leapt for joy.

Out of the whole year, Karina was the only one who called me Ruth (rather than Geek or Nerd) and the only one that ever wanted to hang out with me, so you might have thought I’d be a little bit grateful to her; maybe just at the beginning I was, when she first, like, came up to me in the playground and sat next to me in class. It’s horrid being on your own and I did think that Karina would be better than no one. I even hoped we might become proper friends, but the truth is, I didn’t really terribly like her. She’d been thrown out of Julia Bone’s gang, which was why she’d latched on to me. She said we could be a gang all by ourselves. “Just the two of us! OK? And we’ll take no notice of the others cos they’re just garbage. They’re all garbage, and we hate them! Don’t we?”

She was always wanting me to hate people. Usually I agreed that I did, just to keep her happy, but it was a lie, cos I didn’t. Not really. I hated school. I think perhaps I hated school so much that I didn’t have any hate left over for actual people. Not even Julia Bone, who Karina hated more than anyone. She told me all sorts of things about Julia Bone.

“She smells. Have you noticed? I always hold my breath when I have to go near her. I don’t think she ever has a bath. I don’t think she even knows what a bath is for. She doesn’t ever wash her hands when she’s been to the toilet. I’ve seen her! She’s rancid. She lives in a bed and breakfast. Did you know that? She has to live there cos her dad ran off. Her mum’s, like, on drugs? She’s a real junkie! And her sister’s a retard. The whole family’s just garbage.”

Karina knew everything about everybody. But only bad things; that was all she ever told me. Like that morning, on the way in to school, when she told me that “Jenice Berry’s mum’s gone into the nut house.” Jenice Berry was best friends with Julia Bone, so naturally Karina hated her almost as much as she hated Julia.

“They took her off last night. Came to collect her. She was raving! I know this cos we live in the same block.”

She sounded really pleased about it. I said that it must be frightening, having your mum taken away, but Karina said that Jenice deserved it.

“They’re all mad, anyway. The whole family.”

Sometimes I thought that Karina wasn’t really a very nice person. Then I’d get scared and think that maybe I wasn’t a very nice person, either, and that was why nobody wanted me in any of their gangs, which would mean that I was even less of a nice person than Karina, since she’d at least started off in a gang. I hadn’t even done that.

Other times I thought maybe Karina had only become not very nice because of everyone rejecting her, in which case I ought to be more understanding and sympathetic. So I tried; I really tried. I wanted us to be friends and she kept saying that we were, but every time I felt a bit of sympathy she went and ruined it. Like now when she said in these gloating tones that “People like Jenice Berry always get what’s coming to them. Her and Julia Bone…they’ll get theirs! It’s only a question of time.”

We walked through to the playground just as first bell was going. Julia caught sight of us and yelled, “Watch it, Geek! We’re out to get you! And you, Slugface!”

I won’t say what Karina shouted back as it was a four-letter word, which I didn’t actually blame her for as it’s quite nasty to refer to a person as a slugface, even if they’re not that pretty (which Karina is not!). And I wasn’t really shocked, which I would’ve been once. Everybody used four-letter words at Parkfield. All the same, I did wish Karina wouldn’t answer back; it only made matters worse. Although maybe that’s just me being a wimp. I suppose it was quite brave of her, really.

As we set off across the playground I caught sight of Millie, who used to be my best friend. I waved at her and she twitched her lips in a sort of smile but she didn’t say hallo or anything. Her gang was one of the toughest. They weren’t as mean as Julia’s lot, but only because they would’ve thought it beneath them. They were, like, really superior. Like anyone that wasn’t black wasn’t worth wasting your breath on. It was hard to remember that this time last year me and Millie had been sharing secrets and going for sleepovers with each other. She wouldn’t even give me the time of day, now. Nor would Mariam, though I think Mariam would’ve liked to, if it hadn’t been against the rules.

All the gangs had rules. The main one was that you didn’t go round with anyone who didn’t belong, which was why nobody went round with me – except Karina. Even the people that just hung out in little groups kept away from us; I dunno why. Karina said it was because I was a boffin. But I didn’t mean to be!

The bell rang again. By now, the playground was almost empty.

“I s’ppose we’d better go in,” I said. I didn’t want to, but when it came to it I wasn’t actually brave enough to do what some of the kids did and bunk off school. I think I still believed that school was a place where you might be able to learn something.

We trailed together across the playground and up the steps, keeping as far away from the rest of our year as we could.

The main corridor was full of bodies, all bumping and banging, and everybody shouting at the top of their voice. One of the teachers appeared at a classroom door and bawled, “Stop that confounded racket!” but nobody took any notice. A couple of boys barged into us from behind and a big yob called Brett Thomas caught my glasses with his elbow as he belted past. I went, “Ow!” I felt the tears spring into my eyes. It’s really painful when someone smashes your glasses into your face. “That hurt!” I said. But I didn’t say it loud enough for Brett to hear.

Karina said, “They’re animals.” But she didn’t say it loud enough for Brett to hear, either. Not even Karina was brave enough to say anything to Brett Thomas. He’d told Mr Kirk, our class teacher, only yesterday, “No one messes with me, man!” and even Mr Kirk had backed down. Brett Thomas did pretty well whatever he wanted.

“He’s on drugs,” said Karina. “And his mother’s a—” She put her mouth close to my ear. “She goes with men.”

I felt like yelling, “SHUT UP!” I didn’t want to hear these things – not even about Brett Thomas. I didn’t even know whether they were true. According to Karina, practically the whole of Year 7 was either on drugs or had mothers who were loopy or locked up or going with men, or fathers who had run away or drank too much or beat them. Some of them (according to Karina) had fathers that were in prison. I wasn’t sure that I always believed her. On the other hand …

Well, on the other hand, maybe she really did know these things. Maybe they were true and the whole of Year 7 was mad and dysfunctional, and that was why they behaved the way they did. It was a truly glum and gloomy thought and it filled me with despair. Sometimes I just couldn’t see how I was ever going to survive another five years of Parkfield High.

But that was before Shay came into my life.

(#ulink_f082ab8f-dc7f-501d-91e7-0bce0e47b103)

It was that same morning, when Julia yelled “Slugface!” at Karina, and Brett Thomas mashed my glasses into my face, that Shay arrived at Parkfield High.

Mr Kirk was at his desk, bellowing out names and trying to mark the register, which wasn’t easy with all the hubbub going on. Brett Thomas and another boy were bashing each other in the back row, and some of the girls were shrieking encouragement. Mr Kirk would bawl, “Alan Ashworth?” at the top of his voice and someone thinking they were being funny would yell, “Gone to China!” or “Been nicked!” and everyone would start screeching and hammering on their desk lids.

Karina had told me last term that sometimes the teachers at Parkfield High went mad and had to be taken away in straitjackets, and for once I believed her.

Well, almost. I didn’t think, probably, that they went actually mad, but you could definitely see them getting all nervous and twitchy. Some of them got twitchy cos they were scared, like Mrs Saeed who taught us maths. She was so tiny and pretty looking, and Brett Thomas was like this huge great ugly hulk looming over her. I used to feel really sorry for Mrs Saeed.

But Mr Kirk, he twitched cos he was frustrated. What he’d really have liked, I reckon, was to hurl things. Books and chairs and lumps of chalk. Only he knew that he couldn’t – he could only hurl his voice, and nobody took any notice of voices, least of all Brett Thomas. Karina said that Mr Kirk went home and beat his wife instead, but I think she may just have been making that up.

Anyway. The door opened and Mrs Millchip from Reception came in. She had this girl with her and everyone suddenly broke off yelling and hammering and turned to look. Even Brett Thomas stopped bashing, just for a moment. Mrs Millchip walked over to Mr Kirk, but the girl stayed where she was, leaning inside the door, with her hands behind her back, and this kind of, like, bored expression on her face.

If she hadn’t looked so bored and so…supercilious, I think that’s the word, meaning above all the rest of us, like we were rubbish and she was the Queen of England (except the Queen would be more gracious, having been properly brought up). Even as it was, with this scowly kind of sulk, you could tell she was totally drop dead gorgeous.

She looked the way I look in my daydreams. Tall. (I’m short.) Slim. (I’m weedy.) Heavenly black hair, very thick and glossy. (Mine is mouse-coloured and limp.) Creamy brown skin and a face that has cheekbones, like a model, and these huge dark eyes. (My skin is like skimmed milk, plus I wear braces, not to mention glasses.)

Mrs Millchip left the room, but the girl just went on leaning against the wall. Into the silence, Mr Kirk bellowed, “This is Shayanne Sugar, who’s just joined us. I’d like you to make her feel welcome.” Just for once there wasn’t any need for him to bellow, but I expect by now he’d forgotten how to talk normally. I didn’t really believe that he beat his wife when he got home, but he probably did bawl at her. She’d say, “You don’t have to shout, dear, I’m not deaf,” and Mr Kirk would bellow, “I AM NOT SHOUTING!” Well, that’s what I like to imagine.

He told Shay to find herself a seat, while he went on with the register. Immediately everyone lost interest and went back to what they were doing, which was having private conversations and rooting about under their desk lids, eating things, or, in Brett Thomas’s case, bashing. Shay stood there, letting her gaze move slowly about the classroom, like she was summing people up, deciding which would be the best person to sit next to.

There were several spare seats as it was the second week of term and the people who usually bunked off had already started. There was a spare seat next to me, but I knew she wouldn’t choose that one. Why would a person who looked like a model want to sit next to an insignificant weed with braces on her teeth? And glasses.

“Talk about picky,” muttered Karina. (She was sitting next to me on the other side.) “What’s her game?”

“It’s important,” I said, “where you sit.”

There was a seat next to Millie, and another next to Jenice Berry. I’d choose Millie any day, but that’s because she used to be my best friend. The new girl might look at her and think she was just someone who was a bit plump and podgy and go for Jenice, instead. She wouldn’t know that Millie was clever and funny, and that Jenice (in spite of looking like an angel) was as mean as could be.

Karina was still buzzing in my ear. “Why’s she started so late, anyway? Why didn’t she come at the beginning of term?”

I never really found out why Shay started so late. There were lots of things about Shay I never found out. Of course, she might go and sit next to one of the boys, if she wanted to be different. I wouldn’t! But then I spend my life trying not to be different. Unfortunately it seems that I just am. I hate it! All I want is to blend in and be the same as everyone else. I don’t know why I can’t be, but it’s always like there are people going, “Oh, her,” or, “Well, of course, Ruth Spicer.” Like, shewould, wouldn’t she? You have to be bold to enjoy being different. Like Shay. Shay was the boldest person I’ve ever known.

Just for a second, her eyes met mine and my heart went bomp! inside my ribcage.

I really thought she was going to come over and sit by me. But she didn’t. Instead, she stalked off to the back row and settled herself in solitary splendour, not next to anybody. The nearest person was Brett Thomas, right at the far end.