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Authors: Katy Moran
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that at least she liked me, which was one of the two reasons I hadn’t been permanently excluded: that and the fact that my exam results were predicted to single-handedly propel the school right up the league tables. Not that I’d be taking any GCSEs at this school if Dad got his way.
“Right,” Joe said, which judging from his tone was Yorkshire for
fuck off
.
“What am I going to do about the exam? It’s meant to be this afternoon. My dad’s going to kill me if I don’t take it.”
Mrs Anderson raised her eyebrows. “I’m sure we can rearrange the entrance exam.” She gave me a funny little half smile. “To be frank, Connie, we don’t want to lose a girl of your intelligence, but I’m perfectly happy to explain matters to your father and to the school if need be. I really do think I should call your mother, though.”
My chest constricted. I knew Dad wouldn’t listen to Mrs Anderson: he was far too arrogant to take a teacher seriously, and so far as he was concerned, I was starting at Lissy’s old school in September, like it or not. It was a foregone conclusion that I’d pass the entrance exam. “Please don’t call Mum. She’ll only worry. The funeral’s tomorrow and she’ll never be able to get back to the airport in time to catch a flight, anyway.” I couldn’t stand thinking of Mum arriving home just in time to discover half the teenage population in a hundred-mile radius congregating in the woods behind the Reach. That would put a rocket underneath her if nothing else would. Maybe then at least she’d finally show some interest. How far had news of the party spread? I’d forbidden anyone to mention it on Facebook, on pain of death, but it would only take one comment for the whole thing to go up like an atomic mushroom cloud.
Joe stood silently, just waiting. There was something about him that made you not want to mess. Even Mrs Anderson seemed to pick up on it, and she could face a classroom mutiny without even flinching. She glanced at him briefly, as if appraising his suitability as a chaperone one final time, then nodded. “OK, Connie. We’ll see you on Monday. Take it easy over the weekend, won’t you?” She gave me one of those awful searching looks – her speciality – and I realized she’d heard rumours about the party, guessing I was at the centre of it all, even if no one had told her as much.
Please don’t say anything
, I prayed – not that Joe was likely to care, anyway – but Mrs Anderson just held the door open for us, and gave me another long, hard look before saying, “Take care, Connie, won’t you?”
I followed Joe out to the van without a word and he slid into the driver’s seat beside me, moving with bored, lazy grace. His battered old jeans were ripped at the knee, and when he reached for the steering wheel the worn-out cuff of his jumper grazed the back of his hand. He smelled faintly of washing powder and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“What’s wrong?” Joe asked, not even looking at me as he pulled out of the school car park. I’d been totally called out for staring at him. Red heat spread up my chest, an embarrassing and incriminating blush blooming right across my face.
“Nothing.”
Stop staring at your stepbrother, Connie. It’s really not cool. You’ve already made a move on him while drunk. This is not a good development
.
In the back of my mind I heard Amy laugh, saying,
Guys are like buses, Con. You spend ages waiting, thinking you’ll be alone for the rest of your life, and then they all come along at once
. Right. Except that I was obsessing over one boy who was a complete figment of my imagination, with a cloak of woven white feathers, and blatantly ogling another who happened to be my stepbrother, and who incidentally was also six years older than me and still in love with my dead sister.
You’re a loser of epic proportions, Connie Harker
. Telling myself as much didn’t help.
Keeping his eyes on the
“Right,” Joe said, which judging from his tone was Yorkshire for
fuck off
.
“What am I going to do about the exam? It’s meant to be this afternoon. My dad’s going to kill me if I don’t take it.”
Mrs Anderson raised her eyebrows. “I’m sure we can rearrange the entrance exam.” She gave me a funny little half smile. “To be frank, Connie, we don’t want to lose a girl of your intelligence, but I’m perfectly happy to explain matters to your father and to the school if need be. I really do think I should call your mother, though.”
My chest constricted. I knew Dad wouldn’t listen to Mrs Anderson: he was far too arrogant to take a teacher seriously, and so far as he was concerned, I was starting at Lissy’s old school in September, like it or not. It was a foregone conclusion that I’d pass the entrance exam. “Please don’t call Mum. She’ll only worry. The funeral’s tomorrow and she’ll never be able to get back to the airport in time to catch a flight, anyway.” I couldn’t stand thinking of Mum arriving home just in time to discover half the teenage population in a hundred-mile radius congregating in the woods behind the Reach. That would put a rocket underneath her if nothing else would. Maybe then at least she’d finally show some interest. How far had news of the party spread? I’d forbidden anyone to mention it on Facebook, on pain of death, but it would only take one comment for the whole thing to go up like an atomic mushroom cloud.
Joe stood silently, just waiting. There was something about him that made you not want to mess. Even Mrs Anderson seemed to pick up on it, and she could face a classroom mutiny without even flinching. She glanced at him briefly, as if appraising his suitability as a chaperone one final time, then nodded. “OK, Connie. We’ll see you on Monday. Take it easy over the weekend, won’t you?” She gave me one of those awful searching looks – her speciality – and I realized she’d heard rumours about the party, guessing I was at the centre of it all, even if no one had told her as much.
Please don’t say anything
, I prayed – not that Joe was likely to care, anyway – but Mrs Anderson just held the door open for us, and gave me another long, hard look before saying, “Take care, Connie, won’t you?”
I followed Joe out to the van without a word and he slid into the driver’s seat beside me, moving with bored, lazy grace. His battered old jeans were ripped at the knee, and when he reached for the steering wheel the worn-out cuff of his jumper grazed the back of his hand. He smelled faintly of washing powder and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“What’s wrong?” Joe asked, not even looking at me as he pulled out of the school car park. I’d been totally called out for staring at him. Red heat spread up my chest, an embarrassing and incriminating blush blooming right across my face.
“Nothing.”
Stop staring at your stepbrother, Connie. It’s really not cool. You’ve already made a move on him while drunk. This is not a good development
.
In the back of my mind I heard Amy laugh, saying,
Guys are like buses, Con. You spend ages waiting, thinking you’ll be alone for the rest of your life, and then they all come along at once
. Right. Except that I was obsessing over one boy who was a complete figment of my imagination, with a cloak of woven white feathers, and blatantly ogling another who happened to be my stepbrother, and who incidentally was also six years older than me and still in love with my dead sister.
You’re a loser of epic proportions, Connie Harker
. Telling myself as much didn’t help.
Keeping his eyes on the
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