Wonderland (4 page)

“Nothing. Just . . . I mean, are you, like, all ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ or something?”

“No. I’m just . . . picky. You know. High standards.” I try to joke. “Have you seen most of the boys around here?” It is true. Kind of. I would rather die than let any of the farm boys or yachties near me. They’re repellent in equal measure. But none of them try anyway. Why would they?

“OK. Million-dollar question.”

I groan. This is Stella’s favorite game. Absurd, unanswerable questions. A choice of two evils.

“Who’d you rather —”

“Hang on.” I can hear someone on the stairs. Alfie? No, too heavy. I spring up and pull the lock across.

“Jude?”

Dad. I don’t want him to know about Stella. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Because he hated her then. Hated all the things I loved. The way she looked, the way she spoke. The way she was. Different. Daring. And she hasn’t changed now.

I take a breath. “Mmm?”

“Ed’s here,” he says.

“Ed? What, Fat Ed?” hisses Stella.

“Shh,” I hiss.

“Jude, have you got someone in there?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Um, hang on. I’ll be down in a second.”

Stella is wide-eyed, grinning. “Let me come!”

“No way,” I mouth.

“Pretty please!” she begs.

“No.” I shake my head.

“Jude?” Dad is still there.

“Coming,” I shout. Then, quieter, for Stella’s benefit, because it’s what she would say, “Jesus.” I stretch the word out. Watch it hang in the air. I feel that heat again. Electricity. And I know what a drug must feel like. Because I know then that this is the beginning of a bittersweet addiction.

I hear the stairs again. “Just wait here,” I say to Stella. “Read a book or something.” She smiles. And I know she won’t. That this is theater for her. This is what she lives for. “Just be quiet, anyway.”

“As a mouse.” She crosses her heart. Hopes to die. And I believe her. I trust her.

But Ed won’t. He never did. And I know I am about to lie again.

Ed is sitting on the wall by the back door, feet on his skateboard, wheeling it from side to side. I sit next to him.

“Hey, Jude,” he sings.

I wince. Knowing that she is watching. Listening. “God, Ed. Don’t you ever get bored of that?”

Ed grins. “Nope. So how’d the French go?”

“Magnifique,”
I say.

“Seriously?”

“No. It was fine, you know. I’ll pass. Not A-plus pass, I mean. Just pass.” And they’re my words. The words Jude would pick. But the tone is different. It’s not “I’ll be OK. Don’t worry about me.” It’s “What’s it to you, anyway?” The way Stella would say it.

Ed pauses for a second, two wheels of his skateboard in the air. “Are you OK?”

It’s happening already. I can feel it. But I can’t tell him. I won’t. I don’t need the lecture. Not from Dad and certainly not from him.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“Sure. Exams. I know.” He lets the wheels slap on the ground. “Listen. Do you want to come down the Point later? There’s a load of us going.”

I’m surprised. Not because we never go there. We do. Summer after summer we’ve spent there watching the tourists down below on the beach. But this is different. Because his friends will be there. And my enemies. The Plastics.

“Um, maybe. I don’t know. You know Dad.”

“Well, if you want to, we’ll be there at eight.”

“OK. Thanks,” I say.

“Listen, I’ve got to go.” Ed flips the board effortlessly and catches it with one hand as he stands. He drops his head to one side, dark hair hanging over his eye. “Try to come later, yeah?”

“I will.”

But I know I won’t. I never do. Not when the others are there. I have a million excuses. Dad. Exams. Emily Applegate. And one more now.

Stella.

When I get back upstairs, Stella is lying on the bed, smoking.

“Stella! Not in here. He’ll smell it. At least open the window.”

“God, chill.” She stubs the cigarette out on a CD cover. “So, when did he stop being fat, anyway?”

I look at her.

“Saw him out the window. He’s a Baldwin.”

“Pardon?”

“He’s hot.” She smiles.

“What? Ed?” I look out at his retreating figure, T-shirt, board shorts, and Vans, walking up the hill, skateboard in one hand. Ed, who I dropped like a hot coal when Stella arrived the first time, because she said he couldn’t be in our gang because he was too fat, an embarrassment. Ed, who hung around anyway, quietly waiting until Stella was gone. Who let me stay at his house when I tried to run away. Who taught me to surf. Who walked me to the gate on my first day at Duchy. And was waiting for me there when the bell rang at the end of the day. Who patiently told me I was perfect every time Emily Applegate called me a freak, or a bitch, or a mental case.

“I don’t know.” And I don’t. I can’t remember when his hair got long, or he stopped wearing lace-ups and bought old-skool trainers. Or when he got the board. Then I realize. My stomach lurches. “No, Stella. He’s out of bounds. Totally. I mean it.”

“Jeez. OK.” She makes a face. “Anyone would think you fancied him.”

“No . . .” And I mean it. It’s not that. It’s Stella. And what she might do. “It’s just . . . you know. He’s my mate. And, anyway, he’s leaving in a few months. Going to study law at King’s College.”

“Great, another corporate fat cat in a pinstripe. Just what the world needs.”

“No. Ed’s not like that. . . . He’s going to do good stuff.” And he is. Going to change the world, he says. From the inside.

“Whatever. So, million-dollar question. Who’d you rather? Fat Ed or that bloke who sits outside the launderette all day?”

“What, Mental Nigel?”

“Whatever. Is that his name?”

“Yeah . . . Well, not the mental bit. No, not him. He’s totally weird. Ugh.”

“So, Fat Ed, then.”

“No . . . oh, I guess. Christ, Stella. This game is stupid.”

“No, it’s not. You want to do Fat Ed. Deal with it. Come on, my turn.”

I don’t argue with her. Not because she’s right. But because she will win. “OK. Mental Nigel or Mr. Applegate?”

“Easy. Mr. Applegate.”

“Gross. Why?”

“He’s rich. I could blackmail him not to tell Emily. Or his wife.”

“You are sick.”

Stella smiles. “I hope so.”

Alfie shouts up the stairs. “Dad says tea in five minutes.”

“’Kay . . .” I turn to Stella. “Sorry.”

She shrugs. “Got to fly, anyway. Want to go shopping tomorrow?”

I shake my head. “School. I’ve got this drama rehearsal thing. The exam’s next week.”

“You’ll totally pass. You were always into that acting stuff.”

And then I tell her. Because then there will be no going back. Because she will make it happen. “I’m applying to the Lab. You know, in London? For September. I mean, I haven’t sent the letter yet. And then I might not even get an audition. But —”

“You’re leaving? What does Tom have to say about that?”

She means Dad.

“He doesn’t know. Not yet.” He’ll lose it. Thinks I’m too young. Thinks I’m trying to be like her. “But I’m sixteen,” I say, convincing myself more than Stella. “And it’s not like I’ll be living in some crack den. I can stay at Gran’s.” I can do this. “Anyway, I have to get out of this place, or I’ll end up stuck here like Mrs. Hickman, stacking shelves till I’m sixty.”

And it sounds good, like that. Like I mean it. Not like I’m terrified. Not like I know that there are only three places left this year, only open to special cases. The ones who live abroad. Or were ill. Or were so scared they missed the audition in March. Not like this is Last-Chance Saloon.

“So why haven’t you posted it?” Stella says. “The application.”

“I don’t know.” And right then I don’t. Don’t know why I doubted myself. Because this is what Stella does. Makes me strong.

“Give it here.” She sits up.

“What?”

“The application form. Give it to me. I’m going to send it.”

And I do. I dig deep into my drawer, under the bits of paper that record who I am, who I was, the school reports and drawings and cards, until I feel it, the letter, crackling with promise. She takes it. Puts it down the front of her dress.

“Safest place,” she says.

Then someone shouts up the stairs again. “Jude. How many times? Dinner!” Not Alfie this time. Dad.

“OK!” I shout. And, under my breath, “For God’s sake.”

“Time for tea, children,” says Stella as she unwraps another stick of gum.

We walk down the stairs to the door. I look at her, chewing, sunglasses on, scuffed toes kicking an invisible stone, and wish I looked like that. Bored. Above it.

“See you after school?” I say.

“Not if I see you first.” She smiles and walks off. The letter down inside her ball gown. My possibility against her heart.

“Ha, ha,” I drawl. But part of me is scared she means it. And I don’t want her to go. Not when I’ve just gotten her back.

SHE COMES
the next day. I’m at school, sitting under the oak tree on the field. Eating cold chicken, left over from last night. As far away from Emily Applegate and the Plastics — from noncivilization — as possible. From the toilets where they’ve flushed my head in the cracked and stained bowl; from the lockers where they’ve slammed my fingers in the door; from the cafeteria, where they’ve tripped me and spilled Coke on my uniform. But they still find me. I watch them walking toward me, like some slo-mo Gap commercial. All blond ponytails, tanned legs, and bleached white teeth. I feel my stomach turn and a wave of dizziness wash over me. They stop, photo-shoot perfect, in front of me.

Emily speaks first. That’s how it works. “Nice lunch.”

“That’s gross.” Dawce looks in disgust as a piece of chicken falls out of my mouth, the grease staining my white shirt.

I wipe it away quickly. “Shut up.”

Emily smiles. “Wow. Clever put-down. How long did it take you to think that one up?”

The Plastics snigger.

“Why do you care what I eat, anyway?” I say.

“Oh, I don’t. Just confirms your fruitcake status, though.”

“Whatever.” Out loud I’m above it. But inside I’m begging them,
Just leave me alone. Please.

“Again, genius.”

“Just go away, will you?” I plead.

“Or what?”

Or nothing. That’s the problem. I can’t run to Mummy. And for all the blah in the school rulebook about bullying, the teachers don’t do anything. “If you give off signals that you don’t want to belong, people will make sure you don’t.” Beautiful. All you can do is keep your head down and hope they’ll find some Year Seven with a lisp to pick on instead.

But then there’s a noise behind me. The smell of lighter fluid and Doublemint. And Stella is there. Out of nowhere. My fairy godmother. Wearing an Alice-in-Wonderland headband in her backcombed hair and some vintage dress, all pink puffball skirt and tight top.

“What’s your damage, Applegate?”

Emily stares. “My damage? How retro.”

“Seriously, Emily . . . Emily —” Stella stops like she’s pondering the word. “That’s a fat girl’s name, really.”

“I’m not fat.”

“Not yet,” Stella concedes. “Give it five years, though. You’ll be shopping in menswear like your mum.”

“Bitch,” Emily snaps, searching for a comeback. She finds one. “At least my mum’s alive. Not some dead mental case.”

But Stella can do better. “Truly Shakespearian. Now who’s shit at put-downs?”

Emily snorts. “Whatever.”

Holly Harker tugs at her arm. “Come on, Em.”

Emily snatches her arm back. “Get off me.”

Holly drops her hand. Emily stares at me and then laughs. Short and catty. Then she walks away. Half the school watching her stride across the field. The Plastics flanking her like My Little Bodyguards.

“Advantage, me.”

Stella. I turn to her. “What was that all about?”

Stella pops her gum. “Gee, thanks, Stella. Oh, that’s OK, Jude. Anytime.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” I feel a stab of fear again. That I’ve upset her. That she’ll turn on me like they did. “It’s just that . . . they don’t like me already.”

“They don’t even like each other. Oh, hang on. What? So you want them to like you? Christ. Why do you want to hang out with a load of Psycho Barbies and Diet Coke–heads, anyway?”

“I don’t. I just don’t want it to get worse.” I look down. Waiting for her to trash me. To write me off as a loser. A weakling. But she doesn’t. Instead she smiles and holds out her dress like the angel on top of the Christmas tree.

“It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m your knight in shining armor. Your fairy bloody godmother.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Seriously. With me around, she’ll back off eventually.” Stella takes the gum out and sticks it to the tree.

“Maybe.” But I don’t believe it. “What are you doing here, anyway? If the teachers see you —”

“What? They’ll ask me nicely to leave? Give you detention? Big deal.” She pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her bag.

“Stella!”

“We’re outside. Jesus. Chill, would you?” She lights one up. “So, what are we going to do about Emily?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Nothing?”

“Wrong answer,” retorts Stella. “Come on, Jude. She needs to learn a lesson. Like the ponytail. But bigger. And better. And badder.”