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An excerpt from FALL OUT
Monday morning and Stella Kirby is back at school. Everything is the same as usual or is it? Find out what the final staw in the summer holidays to end all summer holidays was.
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The first person we bumped into outside school was Scarlett. She was wearing a long black skirt and a lot of eyeliner. At the end of last term she had entered her 'Marilyn Manson - Life is Dark' phase. Both her parents are vicars who call you 'youngster', so I can see why she feels the need. Plus, she has just come back from a three-week-long Young Christians summer camp, so if anyone needs to explore their dark side it's Scarlett. Dexter Brown, Scarlett's shadow, was standing beside her. He had made a half-hearted attempt at dyeing his hair black. When he saw us he faded into the background.
Scarlett looked at me meaningfully and asked, 'How was your summer?'
'Fine,' I snapped back and then added, 'What's the matter with your eyes? You're looking at me in a strange way.'
Scarlett frowned and said, 'Am I still doing that? Dad made me go on an "active listening" course.' She put on a bored expression and picked at her black nails, 'Is this better?
'Much.' I replied, laughing.
Scarlett had lived next door to me forever. Someone once said, 'You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends'. I don't think that's strictly true. Sometimes geography and knowing someone for a long time can make a person into a friend. Things like having a shared history or being in the same class can make a huge difference. Chloe and Scarlett had been with me through all my phases of growing up.
The three of us made our way to our new tutor group. Our Year Ten tutor was Mr Phillips, which meant that registration was in an art room. The room was a tip. Every available space was filled with piles of papers and mountains of art folders. Mr Phillips ignored us as we walked in. He was deep in conversation with two Year Twelve boys. One was a small dark-haired boy with blue twinkly eyes called Lukas and the other was Mark Grayson.
Over the summer Mark had won a national art competition and had his picture splashed over the local paper under the headline, MOOREDGE COMP PRODUCES NEW DAMIEN HIRST.
I took one look at Marks' soft brown eyes, pale hair and height and made the snap judgement that he was going to be my Boy Challenge. He was just on the right side of ordinary to be interesting, but not too gorgeous to be full of himself. Winning the art prize meant that he must have a sensitive soul. That had to be a step up from the Lee Thorntons of this world.
I was just trying to attract Chloe's attention to inform her of my choice when Mr Phillips said, 'No Lotte Brownlow?'
My insides flip-flopped. I knew what was going to happen next.
Mr Phillips came over to me, 'Stella, what's happened to Lotte?'
I sniffed and said, 'Why should I know?' Let him find out from someone else that she was still on holiday at her Mum's villa in Spain.
Scarlett tried to distract me by butting in, 'Stella, I've found some of your stuff in my art folder.' She waved some sheets of paper under my nose. I grabbed them.
'They're not bad,' Scarlett added.
I looked at the work. One was a badly drawn still life of a pair of trainers and the other was a charcoal portrait of Lotte. Drawn in the days when we had been best friends. When I saw that, something snapped inside me. I snatched the picture up from the table and ripped it into a thousand pieces. It was hard to do because the paper was thick and my hands go covered in charcoal. I carried on ripping despite the unnatural silence that had fallen in the room as everyone held their breath. When I'd finished I simply scooped up the scraps and dropped them into the bin saying, 'That's where rubbish like that belongs.'
Mr Phillips coughed, Mark Grayson whistled and everyone started talking loudly. I sat down again and tried to act like I couldn't care less. This was hard because my insides felt like they were being ripped up.
The final straw in my summer to end all summers had been falling out with Lotte.
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© Lynda Waterhouse
