Brave New Girl (11 page)

“S'all right.” I hugged him back and it felt good. “Good night, Art. Sleep tight. Tomorrow, yeah, you and Den, be nice to each other.”

“It's hard, Seren.”

“Why?”

“Cos Denny says nasty things. He says we not brothers, he says I came in a box and someone left me on the doorstep.”

I smiled. “Sasha used to say that to me too, about the box on the doorstep. He doesn't mean it.”

“Did she?” Arthur thought a minute. “Were you?”

“‘Course not,” I said. “Don't listen to him, he's just winding you up. This is our family, I mean, you and Den, you've even got the same dad.” I bit my lip. “Not that it makes a blind bit of difference.”

“You're still my sister though, isn't it?”

“You bet.” I kissed him on the top of his head. “Totally.”

“And Sasha?”

“Yes, too.” I kissed him again.

“Then why isn't she here any more?”

“Bedtime,” I said. I got up and turned the light off. Even Arthur felt it, even Arthur knew something was wrong.

“Seren?”

“Good night, Arthur.”

“Seren, I don't want to be a Kute Kiddie. Denny says it's for babies and I'm not a baby, isn't it?”

I went back to his bunk and sat on the bed again. “No, Art, you're not a baby.” I felt for his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I ruffled his hair. “I think you'd win,” I said.

“But if I didn't it would only be worse,” Arthur said. “Denny would tease me more and he would say it was because I was a troll. I want to sing in the Olympics and Denny says the Olympics aren't coming back to London for one hundred and fifty years and then I'll be dead or a head in a bottle that talks like in Futurama, and they still won't want me to sing....”

I tried not to smile. “You can't sing in the Olympics, but you can sing along in the crowd.”

Arthur made a huffy noise.

“And you don't have to do Kutest Kiddie if you don't want to...”

“I don't want to. Denny says Cameron and Tyler in my class would beat me up.”

“That's awful! You can't let other people stop you doing something if you want to do it! And you are so cute!” I hugged him tight but he pushed me away.

“I don't want to be cute. I want to be Arthur, King of the Britons, like Mum says.”

“OK, you don't have to enter the Kute Kiddie thing. But you shouldn't let what other people think stop you doing anything,” I said. I sounded a bit like one of those American teens who were always right about everything and went around hugging all the time. Maybe I could still do something....

Perhaps I could send a picture of Arthur in secretly.

I stood in the doorway and watched Arthur get comfy under his duvet. A little flutter of excitement bubbled up inside. I'd send in his picture and then he'd win and be so-o grateful, Mum would be thrilled and even Denny would be proud and maybe Sasha would say something nice to me and want to be my sister again.

I sighed. No, it wasn't worth it. I remembered the last time I tried to do something good. That had rebounded big-time. What if I sent the picture off and then Arthur hated me forever too? How many brothers or sisters could I afford to lose?

Across the landing I could see the light from the
computer screen in my bedroom. I pushed open the door and there was Denny lying on my bed. I was ready to have a go at him. “This is my room!”

Denny was cool. “If I was you, I wouldn't leave the laptop on with you logged in as Sasha.” He wagged his finger at me. “Naughty, naughty.”

My heart sped up. “Is she here?”

“No, but she could've been.” He smiled.

“Give me that!”

Denny moved away from the laptop but he stayed sitting on my bed. What had he seen?

“If you tell her I will kill you!” What if Sasha found out? I scrolled through the history. He'd been looking at game sites. Had he seen my picture? Had he read those comments?

“So what you gonna give me to keep quiet, then? Or I could just spill that I know that you know her passwords...”

“Denny!”

“S'got to be worth something!”

“You know, I was going to have a word with you about Arthur, about how he's so jealous of you, about how he looks up to you so much and you just throw it in his face. He wants to do what you do! He thinks the sun shines out of your...”

“Yeah, well on a good day it does, doesn't it!”

“Denny! I'm trying to talk to you here! Don't forget I'm still three years older than you, Den.”

“So? Doesn't mean you should be using Sasha's passwords. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be telling Sasha what you're doing...”

I folded my arms. I remembered the way Denny had gone pink when Arthur mentioned Alicia Welsh.

“OK, Denny, here's the deal. You don't tell Sasha about the passwords. I don't tell Alicia Welsh how much you like her.”

The word Alicia did the trick. Denny blanched and now I was smiling.

I was still smiling when he slunk away out of my bedroom, promising his lips were zipped.

I took a deep breath and clicked back to Christina's page. Knowing Denny, he'd have left a really stupid message or something. I scrolled down. There was a picture of a kitten pulling a funny face. I scrolled down some more. The picture of me had gone. I couldn't believe it. I scrolled up and down again. Turned the computer on and off, even unplugged it and booted it up again.

It wasn't there. I skipped across to Sasha's. It had gone from her page too. I checked again. What had
happened? Keith and his magic computer skills? No, he wasn't that good. Maybe Christina had had a change of heart? Some people were asking where the picture had gone, but she didn't seem to be replying.

It really had gone. Completely and totally gone. I pictured Christina in her room feeling bad about the nasty comments. After all, she hadn't said any of the really nasty things, had she? Maybe she'd had a word with Fay, who'd said something to Sasha, maybe that's how it was. I wanted to text her, email her to say thank you over and over and maybe forget about Christmas, and even if she didn't want to be best mates like old times, maybe she'd stopped hating me.

The eye was still round my neck. Perhaps it was doing a really good job of keeping away the evil eye. Perhaps it was magic. I would definitely wear it to school tomorrow, under my shirt so none of the teachers noticed, of course.

I still had Christina's number in my phone. I wrote three words, THANK U S, then I retyped SEREN in case she thought it was Shazna, and pressed send.

I told the story to Keith about ten times on the way to school.

“I think it's this.” I waved the eye at him.

“Whatever you say,” Keith said. “But just be cool with Christina.”

“I don't think I have a cool setting,” I said.

“Find it!” Keith pushed his glasses up. “Pretend! Look, if you can pretend to be Miranda, shut away and discovering a brave new world, you can pretend to be someone who is cool.”

I thought about it for a bit. We'd reached the big crossing in front of the gate. “You know, Keith, I think you're right again.”

“Allow it,” he said. “We've got a big day, we've got loads to shoot. We need to do all the café scenes tonight,
and then Friday we can get on and do the tower block to keep on schedule.”

“You've got a schedule?” I said.

“Of course. How else are we going to get this edited and submitted on time? Whatever you do, don't get detention.”

“Yes, boss!” I saluted. “If Miss Tunks says anything to me in Drama I'll keep my mouth shut. I promise. And I'll be so cool, if Christina talks to me she'll think my middle name is Arctic Roll.”

But Christina wasn't even in school. I saw Sasha come in with Fay, and for a second she looked at me and I looked straight back and smiled. I felt my heart speed up, and I had to stop myself from calling out or waving, or running over and hugging her. But she looked away after a sliver of a second. I felt incredibly sad: what if Sasha would never want to be my sister again? I imagined a future where Sasha moved out and I had to remind Arthur what she looked like.

So when Shazna and Ruby stared I didn't feel anything at all, which looked as good as cool to the outside world, and me and Keith concentrated on what shots he wanted to get in the café.

The café scene came about half-way through the film, when Miranda had made her way down from the tower block and was discovering the world. It was, Keith said, a kind of half-way house – the gateway between the estate and everything else.

“Like a tunnel?” I said, when we were talking it through at lunchtime.

“Exactly!”

“And I have to wear the dress?” I said.

“Of course! The whole point is how the dress reacts to light – just like the water in the canal. It's like a theme: water, change, that kind of thing. The Olympics is a whole new world that she can see and maybe be a part of....” Keith was getting excited.

I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure what he meant. But I did trust him. And I had the dress in my school bag. It was lovely – silver-grey and shiny – like liquid metal, like that stuff they have in thermometers. Mr Demetriou told us all about it once in science. Mercury, he said it was. In the olden days, Mr Demetriou said, they called mercury quicksilver and they thought it was magical.

“It's going to look magic,” I said.

“Totally!”

School crawled by, but at least I stayed off Miss Tunks' radar all the way through Drama. And I didn't say a word even when I got put in a group with Sanjay and Ruby and we had to improvise negative emotions all afternoon. In fact, Ruby was almost a laugh without Shazna telling her what to think. Even Miss Tunks admitted that our group sulk was so the best in the class.

We got the bus to Dad's place and Mum was driving. I wasn't sure if this was a relief or not. Keith still thought I should talk to her, but he didn't realise there was so much she didn't know, so much I hadn't been saying, I wouldn't know where to start. And even if I did tell her, what could she do except worry? It was easier just keeping stuff to myself.

The Stone Cave looked quiet from the high street, and inside it was still empty.

“Seren! Babes!” Dad was at the back of the café, sitting at his laptop. His eyes were all screwed up. “I've left my reading glasses at home,” he said. “And is this Keith? Hi, Keith.” Dad was smiling.

“Hello, Mr Ali,” Keith said.

“Call me Mo.”

“Thanks for letting us use your place, Mr Al.., um, Mo.”

“Any time, you know you're always welcome,” Dad said. “I wish you'd come round more often, bring your mates....”

Keith looked at me and we both said, “Nene,” out loud, at the same time, and laughed.

“Is she that bad?” Dad said, and I nodded. He made a face.