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and couldn’t make sense of it. She did her math, but every single sum came out wrong, so wrong that the teacher said she was just being silly. She refused to do P.E. Usually she quite enjoyed it (as long as it wasn’t jumping the horse), but today she pretended to be ill and sat out.
    The only nice thing that happened all day was that Keith didn’t tease her or bully her. In fact he seemed to be trying to make friends with her. She couldn’t stand him usually but today she felt different about him. On the other hand, Manda kept away from her.
    After school, Bindi walked slowly to the gate. Keith had suggested they meet at the shops. She could see Manda watching. They lived on the same street and they usually went home together, either with Jan or with Manda’s mother, whoever came to get them. Today it was Manda’s mother. Bindi pretended not to see her and set off toward the shops. She heard footsteps running behind her.
    “Bindi!”
    She stopped. Manda’s mother ran up to her.
    “Where do you think you’re off to?” she panted.
    “I’m not coming home today,” Bindi heard herself say. “I’m meeting Mummy.”
    “Jan didn’t say anything to me about that. I think you’d better come with us.”
    “No,” said Bindi. “Mummy told me not to go home with you. She’s waiting for me.” And she ran off in the opposite direction from home.
    She slowed down when she got round the corner. Her heart was thumping and she felt very strange. Her feet had hardly touched the ground. It was asif … as if the necklace had been pulling her along, pulling her almost through the air. She had a funny feeling that if she really needed to, she could fly.
    She walked to the shops. She kept trying to think about what she was doing. She had told a complete lie to Manda’s mother. As a matter of fact she’d been telling lies all day, to the teachers, to the other children … to herself, even. One bit of her mind knew very clearly that the necklace was causing her to behave like this—to change. Another part of her was enjoying it. The two parts of her mind seemed to be fighting each other. It was giving her a headache.
    At the shops she met Keith. The first thing he did was give her a fruit-and-nut bar.
    “Where’d you get it?” Bindi asked.
    “Nicked it, didn’t I,” Keith said, boldly.
    Bindi thought, “Yesterday I’d have been shocked. I’d have given it right back to him.” Today she wasn’t shocked and she ate the chocolate and wished there were more.
    “How do you nick things?” she heard herself ask.
    “Come on, I’ll show you,” Keith said.
    He led her to the paper shop.
    “Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”
    “Naaaaa,” said Keith.
    As they walked into the shop and Bindi saw all the sweets laid out, the necklace was quivering round her neck, digging its spikes into her. It was just as if it were saying, “Go on, go on!” the way you might if you were watching an exciting film.
    Bindi’s heart was beating. Her hands were trembling. She saw Keith glance round and then put hisschoolbag down on the display of sweets. He dawdled about for a while, and then picked it up again.
    “Here! You—boy! None of that—I saw you!”
    Keith jumped with fright and dropped the bag, and a Clark bar fell on the floor with it. He started to run away, but the shopkeeper, a very big Sikh with a turban and a fierce-looking rolled black beard, grabbed him.
    “You are a thief! I am going to call the police!” he was roaring as he shook Keith back and forth furiously.
    Everyone in the shop took sides. In the end the Sikh let Keith off, because he cried and swore he’d never done it before and would never do it again. But the shopkeeper told him not to come back into the shop, and pushed him out, throwing his schoolbag out after him.
    Bindi sneaked out too. She had kept very quiet. She’d also been very busy.
    As she and Keith crept off down the road, she passed him the Clark bar she had stolen while all