Shadow Breakers (2 page)

“Interesting,” he says eventually, and it's only then that I realize I've been holding my breath. “I thought so on the bus. Low-level and basic, but you
are
. . .”

I take another step backward. “What are you talking about?”

“Here's some advice, Miranda,” he says. “Keep your head down, and if anyone asks you what happened on the bus, you say you've no idea, right?”

Before I can ask him how he knows my name, and tell him that I really
don't
have a clue what happened on the bus, he turns and saunters off in the direction of the quad, hands in pockets.

When the bell rings out for the end of lunch, I jump a mile.

What did he mean, “you are”?

I am
what
?

“Did you have a good first day?” asks my mother, placing a cup of strong, steaming tea on the wooden kitchen table in front of me.

I look up at her in gratitude. “Not bad, thanks, Mum.”

I don't always drink tea — it tastes quite bitter to me — but the mug warms my cold hands. And there is something loving about tea, despite its bitterness, something comforting and Saturday-autumn-evening. It reminds me of cuddling up to Dad and watching the soccer results or
Britain's Got Talent
.

Mum sits opposite me at the table. As usual, various books and papers are scattered in front of her. Truffle's taking a nap.

“Your pop magazine's arrived,” she says, pushing
Rolling Stone
over to me.

I smile indulgently.
Your pop magazine.
She always calls it that. I've given up trying to change her.

Her pen scratches across the pages of her notebook, and I leaf through the pages of my magazine. No JumpJets news that I can see. Barometric are splitting up — well, no surprises there, Sherlock, as they all hate each other. I found out from their website days ago. And MC Salacious is slated to remix the Calvino Brothers' new single. That's going to sound
rubbish
.

Mum sighs and pushes her glasses up on the top of her head. “Did you meet anyone nice?” she asks.

I shrug. “A few people.”

“What's your homeroom teacher like? Miss Bellini, isn't it?”

“She's okay. Quite strict, in a quiet way. But nice.”

Mum puts down her pen for a moment and folds her hands. “Miranda,” she says, and the way she says my name makes me fold my
Rolling Stone
shut and sit up.

“Yes, Mum?”

“You would tell me, wouldn't you,” she says, “if anything . . . odd happened at school? Anything that made you feel uncomfortable?”

You mean like the school bus freezing up for no reason in the middle of April, Mum? Is that the kind of thing you had in mind? You mean like a weird older boy peering into my eyes and telling me that I'm something, I don't know what?

I don't want to tell her about Josh, but I know she'll hear about the bus incident. It'll be all around town soon. I try to sound casual.

“Oh, the bus broke down and we had to walk. It was weird, actually. I think the . . . thermostat broke or something? The driver wasn't very happy.”

Mum smiles, then hesitates, as if weighing something up. “You're so important to me, Miranda,” she says finally. “So important in so many ways. Just . . . be careful.”

She disappears upstairs to check on Truffle, but her words echo in my head, as if they carry some sort of strange meaning I don't yet know.

I'm wandering around the park on my own, skateboarding, listening to my iPod, and wondering if I'm ever going to have any friends. And feeling pretty miserable. Trying to do some flips on the skate ramp and getting them wrong.

To my surprise, I see Jade, who sat next to me in class. She's on the wooden carousel, pushing out with her foot so that she spins gently. She's chewing, and watching me with an amused grin. As she catches my eye, she offers me some chewing gum. Cautiously, I go up to her and take it. I nod at her. She nods back. For a few moments, we don't say anything.

“You ain't bad with that,” she says eventually, nodding at the skateboard.

Blushing, I sit down beside her. “Yeah, well, got to practice a bit more. Not used to this ramp. You from London?” I say. “I didn't get a chance to ask.”

“Yeah,” says Jade.

“Me too. Where?” I ask.

“Lewisham,” she says. “You?”

“We used to live in Cricklewood,” I say.

She grins. “So what brought you to this dump?”

“Well, it was for my mum's work,” I say, not wanting to elaborate. “How about you?”

She shrugs, doesn't look at me. “This and that,” she says, and gazes into the distance, chewing, as if not quite sure whether she trusts me.

There's a pause.

“You got away with that JumpJets top in school.”

She grins, looking down at it. “Yeah, but I won't again. Miss Bellini told me that.”

“Did you go to the free gig in Trafalgar Square?” I ask. This is the only time I've seen my favorite band. A four-song set as part of a radio station's charity day. Uncle Jeff and his girlfriend took me. Mum doesn't really let me go to actual concerts yet.

Jade looks at me and grins. “Was you really there?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, we was both there. And now we're both here. How weird is that?”

After five minutes, we are talking freely. And after two hours, we are almost like old friends. Her full name's Giada-Divina Verdicchio. She has to spell it for me. It's Italian.

So as the sun sets I spend time walking around Firecroft Bay with Giada — Jade. Eating chips, looking at the shops and the bright amusement arcades, and thinking how different it all feels from London. How alien. And I don't like that pungent, dead smell.

“People used to think it was ozone,” I say to Jade. “Like air full of oxygen, really good for you — but no, it's just rotting seaweed.”

“Yuck,” she says. “Rotting seaweed, fish and chips, and cotton candy.”

“Yeah, that's the smell of Firecroft Bay. Nice, huh?”

“Gross.”

Jade says people have told her the place comes alive in a few weeks when the tourists descend with their dribbling ice creams and screaming tots. Can't wait. Not.

But at least I've got a friend who likes the same music.

Everything would be looking up if it weren't for the oddness with the bus, and those four weird kids who acted like they know something about me.

And the Shape, of course. Always the Shape.

Home time. Freedom. We're pouring out of the doors, down the steps, and across the playground, a great river of babbling, laughing, shouting kids and all the other stuff that goes with us: swinging bags, untucked shirts, chucked apple cores, coats thrown and dragged.

My uniform's arrived, so I don't stick out as much. And I've started to get into a routine. I can almost swan through the gate now, rucksack slung casually. I can loosen my tie, make out like I belong here. That's the key. That's how you avoid being noticed, avoid being bullied. I can do fake confidence, I tell myself. I have to. Got to put on a show for the world, even though I'm dying inside.

But I don't talk about my dad. Not even to Jade, not yet.

She's waiting at the gate for me now. She's wearing bright lipstick, giant earrings, and her tie big-knotted halfway down with about three shirt buttons open. She's chewing gum, and her eyes are hidden behind shades. Some boy says something rude to her and she snaps back a response, flicking the finger at him. I smile and pick up my pace.

And then I spot them.

It's the first time since the bus that I've seen them all together. All sitting on top of a bench like starlings on a telephone wire. Everybody else is giving them a wide berth, as if there's an exclusion zone around them.

Josh Barnes, gangly and floppy-haired, in a long, dark coat that looks too big for him. I haven't spotted him since that weird conversation in the corridor. Would he even go to the trouble of avoiding me? Cal McGovern, leaning intently forward, her flaming hair bright in the April sun. Lyssa Myers, scowling like I've just stolen her favorite One Direction pencil. And the boy with shaggy white-blond hair and tinted specs. He's listening to something on earphones, tapping one finger on the palm of his hand. I've found out his name now. It's Oliver “Ollie” Hanwell.

They are all looking at me.

I want to confront them. I want to say,
What's your problem?
Bit of Jade-attitude, perhaps. But I'm still a newbie here. I'm just getting to know the ropes. I've made it this far without getting any trouble, and I don't intend to start now.

Casting one last, nervous look over my shoulder, I join Jade at the gate.

“All right?” she says.

“Yeah, not bad.”

I tap her left earring. “Studs only, it says in the rules.”

She grins. “When you're me, babe, you can get away with anything.” She senses my gaze drifting to the group on the bench. “Weirdos,” she says. “Don't worry about them.”

“Why are they all hanging out together?”

Jade shrugs. “I dunno. Do you really give a toss? Just what weirdos do, innit? Come on, let's go down to the Esplanade.”

I follow her, out of the gate and along the school fence.

My mind isn't on our conversation, though. Sunlight flickers in and out of the metal fence posts, strobing in my eyes. I'm sure I can still feel four pairs of eyes drilling into me all the way down the hill, past the tiled roofs, and toward the misty seafront. Eyes inside my head.

• • •

So I start to watch them back.

Lyssa Myers is one top genius. They weren't joking. Take Chemistry, where she sits right at the front, and knows the answer to
everything
.

Like this: “Hydrogen chloride, miss!”

Or this: “Sublimation, miss!”

See what I mean?

Her arm goes up and down like a yo-yo. She seems to know the answers to the questions before Miss Bellini has even finished asking them.

Today Miss Bellini starts class like a conjuror, producing four Ping-Pong balls from nowhere — two red ones in her left hand, and two blue ones in her right.

Everyone gasps. Except Jade, who says,
“Ta-dah!”
sarcastically, and makes everyone laugh, including Miss Bellini.

“Just like that!” says Miss Bellini with a grin, then she slams the four balls into one another. They stick together in one blue and red mass. “Now then . . . Miranda May.”

I sit bolt upright. “Miss?”

Jade kicks me under the table. “Watch out,” she mutters.

“Catch!” she says, and throws the model to me.

I catch it. Smart. Netball practice coming in useful.

“Good!” says Miss Bellini, nodding. “Now . . . can you name me something whose nucleus looks like that? Hmm?” She peers over her glasses at me. “Which element?”

“Um . . .”

I'm thinking hard. I know this. We did it only the other day.

“Give you a clue,” says Miss Bellini. “It makes you
talk like this
!” And she does a squeaky, high-pitched voice, which makes everyone fall about laughing. “Okay, okay!” she says, holding out her hands, and the hubbub subsides as if by magic. She nods at me again. “Miranda?”

I've got it, of course. “Helium, miss.”

“Helium. Yes.”

And Miss Bellini smiles at me.

And that's how I get by, in general. I'm tired because of the dream, because of not sleeping, but in school I'm pretty normal. I'm okay at Science, good at Math and English, keep my trap shut in History, and get by in French.
Jean-Paul est dans le jardin
, etc., etc. Yeah, yeah. Wake me up when Jean-flipping-Paul does something exciting.

Okay, I've decided I don't like being watched. And they're still watching me. I know they are. I need to work out what is going on, before it drives me crazy. So I've made a plan.

At afternoon break, I spot Ollie Hanwell disappearing down the corridor in his duffle coat. You can see his bright blond hair a mile off. Just as I'm about to go after him, Jade's beside me. “All right, mate?” She takes me by the elbow. “C'mon, what you skulking round here for?”

“Um, I've got . . . something to do. Sorry.”

“Ooh, secret mission. You
meeting
someone?”

“No, not like that.”

“Oh, yeah?” She grins expectantly, swiveling on one heel. “Who's lover-boy? You got someone waiting to snog you round by the Biology labs?”

“Five minutes,” I say, holding up a hand. “Just gimme five minutes.”

I shoot off through the double doors at the top of the corridor. I run at full tilt past the language lab and the classrooms, and skid at the end so I almost lose my balance. Breathless, I pound down the stairs, jumping the last three, and turn the corner — just in time to see Ollie disappear toward the sports fields. I hurry after him.

I find him on the bench by the track, putting on his rugby cleats. I sit near to him, glancing up to see if he has noticed me, and open the packet of mints I have in my pocket.

“Chilly this afternoon,” I say.

He looks up, narrows his eyes as if trying to place me, then smiles. “Oh, it's
you
. Miranda, isn't it?”

So he knows my name, too. Have the Weirdos been talking about me as well as watching me?

I wonder whether to mention the watching. I decide not to, for now. Better to be cool and remote. Play them at their own game.

“Like the bag,” I say.