Angel Dares (32 page)

The realization had come out of nowhere, like the tornado spiralling Dorothy’s house off to Oz. When Raven opened the door to the changing rooms, everything went skipping down the yellow brick road to Bizarre City.

Hedda’s question had seemed so, well,
normal
. ‘Hey, where’s my Chloé tote?’

The other girls in the locker room getting ready for the tennis competition had made a brief search among their belongings. Raven had not even bothered: her little sports bag, a much mocked airline freebie, was too small to hide the bulky taupe leather shoulder bag. Hedda had been flaunting it all morning like a fisherman displaying a prize catch. The flexing, polished surface had gleamed like a sea trout in her manicured fingers:
so many pockets
and you won’t believe how much it cost!
Hedda had thought it a bargain but it had come with a price tag more than Raven’s grandfather earned in a month as the school’s caretaker. Something so pointlessly expensive had to be a rip-off.

‘Hey, I’m talking to you, Stone.’

Raven felt a sharp tug on her elbow. Standing on one foot to lace her tennis shoe, she toppled to one side. Why had Hedda suddenly taken to using her surname?

‘Whoa, Hedda, careful!’ Raven balanced herself against the wire mesh dividing the changing areas and tied off the bow. ‘You almost knocked me over.’

Stick thin and with an abundance of wine-red hair, Hedda reminded Raven of a red setter, sharp nose pointing to the next shopping bargain, a determined little notch in her chin that gave her face character. Hedda put her hands on her hips. ‘Where have you hidden it?’

‘What?’ Raven was too surprised to realize what it was that Hedda was accusing her of doing. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. I’m not stupid. I saw you looking at it. It had my phone—my make-up—my money—everything is in that bag.’

Raven tried to keep a hold on her temper and ignore the hurt of being accused with no proof. She had had enough of that in the last school she had attended before coming to the UK. She tried for reasonable. ‘I haven’t done anything with it. Where did you last see it?’

‘At the lunch table—don’t pretend you don’t know.’

The changing room fell silent as the other girls listened in on the exchange. A flush of shame crept over Raven’s cheeks even though she knew she was innocent. Memories of standing before the principal in her old school rushed back. She felt queasy with the sense of déjà vu.

‘I’m sorry: are you saying I stole it?’

Hedda tipped her head back and looked down her long nose at Raven. ‘I’m not saying—I know you took it.’

Raven dragged her thoughts away from her past and focused on the accuser. What on earth had happened to Hedda? She had missed most of last term and had come back with what seemed like a personality transplant—from clingy, whingeing minor irritant to strident, major-league bitch.

Raven told herself not to back down; she’d faced false accusations before and this time she wasn’t a traumatized little girl. What was the worst Hedda could do? Wave a mascara wand at her?

‘So you think I took it? Based on what? On that fact that I just
looked
at it? Looking doesn’t mean stealing.’ Raven appealed to the other girls, hoping to find someone who would join her in shrugging off the accusation as absurd, but their expressions were watchful or carefully neutral.
Gee, thanks, guys.

Then Hedda’s friend, Toni, joined in the finger pointing. ‘There’s no point claiming you’re innocent. Things were going missing all last term.’

‘I had nothing to do with that. Some of my stuff was stolen too.’

Toni ignored her. ‘We all noticed small things disappearing but didn’t like to … I mean we
guessed
it was you but we felt sorry for you, so … ’ Toni waved her hand as if to say
that was last term, this is now.

‘Sorry for me?’ Raven gave a choked laugh. One thing she never wanted was anyone’s pity. Even at her lowest moment after losing her parents, she hadn’t asked for that.

Hedda got right up in her face. ‘But taking my brand new Chloé? Now you’ve gone way too far. Give it back, Stone.’

Ridiculous
. Raven turned her back on Hedda. ‘And what am I supposed to be doing with these things I’m stealing?’

‘Your grandfather has a new car—if you can call a Skoda a car.’

Toni snorted. Raven felt a surge of anger: taking a crack at her was one thing but Hedda had better keep her granddad out of it or there really would be trouble!

‘So I, what? Steal from the rich to give to the poor? Now why didn’t I think of that?’ Raven’s irony was lost on the literal-minded Hedda.

‘Stop denying it. I want my bag and I want it now.’

Hoping that if she ignored the infantile rant Hedda would back down, Raven shook her head and dipped her fingers inside her jeans pocket for a band to tie up her hair.

‘Don’t you ignore me!’ With a grunt of fury, Hedda shoved Raven hard into the mesh, right onto a peg that caught the corner of her eye. Even though the hook was padded by clothes, Raven saw stars. Clapping a hand to her face, she swung round, temper threatening to gallop away riderless.

‘Look, Hedda, I don’t have your stupid tote!’ She gathered herself in the defensive stance she had been taught. Raven had to be careful, knowing she could do a lot of harm with the self-defence training her father had insisted she take. It had come in useful for fending off the predators who roamed the corridors in her American public school, but she guessed it would be frowned on at refined Westron and would earn her a reputation as a thug.

‘Yes. You. Do!’ Hedda shoved Raven in the chest with each word so her back collided with the mesh. Someone giggled nervously while two students hurried out to fetch the PE teacher.

That was outside of enough. It was time Hedda learnt there was one girl in the school she couldn’t bully.

‘I’ve had enough of your idiotic—’ (push) ‘—accusations!’ Raven thrust Hedda back a second time, measuring out exactly the same force as Hedda had used on her.

Then Hedda went for a handful of hair. Big mistake.

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