The Secrets Club (2 page)

Saturday morning, on the train to
Gran's, and I still haven't told my friends I'm not coming.
I've put it off till I'm on my way because I know they'll try to
change my mind.

Not that they'll succeed.

My sports bag is on the floor between my
feet and I'm picking at the skin round my nails. Beside me my ten-year-old
sister Jade has got her head stuck in a book as usual. She's only eighteen
months younger than me but we're like chalk and cheese. I'm always doing
something active, while Jade is permanently in a world of her own. If she's
not reading stories she's making them up herself, scribbling them down in an
exercise book which she carries with her everywhere.

I tug at a piece of skin but it resists and starts stinging so I stop peeling
strips off myself as a delaying tactic and take out my phone. Quickly I scroll
through my contacts till I come to NS Club. No Secrets. That's a joke. Who
shall I ring to break the bad news? Not Tash – she'll ask too many questions;
not Lissa – she'll go all moody on me; Ali's the safest bet.

‘Hi, Dani!' Ali sounds
puffed as if she's rushing. ‘I'm on my way! Running a bit late cos
my mum made me sort out my washing and tidy my room – I mean, I don't know
what's wrong with her – she always does this on Saturday mornings –
she's so annoying – anyway, I'll see you in fifteen –'

‘I can't come,' I say,
cutting her off mid-flow.

‘Why not?' Her voice is
shrill with disappointment. ‘You're not playing football, are
you?'

I really want to say yes and tell her
all about it but now's not the time. Not in front of Jade.

‘I've got to go and see my
gran.'

‘Daan-iiii!'

‘I know! There's nothing I
could do about it.
My mum said I had to.
I'm on the train now with my sister. I'm really sorry.'

‘It's OK.' Her tone is
softer now, kinder. ‘It's not your fault. Mums, eh?'

‘Say sorry to the others for me,
will you? I don't want them to think I've let them down.'

‘I will. Don't worry,
I'll explain.'

‘Thanks, Ali. See you
Monday.'

I switch off my phone and sigh with
relief. That wasn't so bad after all. Beside me Jade says, without even
glancing up from her book, ‘You told a lie.'

‘No I didn't. We
are
going to see Gran.'

‘Not that. You said Mum said we
had to.'

I glare at her as she turns the page.
How can she do that, read a book and earwig my conversation at the same time?

‘It's difficult. My friends
all want to meet up together but I can't because now we go to Gran's
every Saturday.'

‘Yeah, but we don't
have
to. Mum doesn't
make
us. We're going because
we want to.'

‘I know that,' I say
defensively.

‘I like seeing Gran.'

‘So do I!'

‘So tell them then. Tell them the truth.'

It's annoying having a
conversation with someone who's continuing to read a book at the same time but
can still make sound observations and draw logical conclusions. Especially if
she's eighteen months younger than you.

‘It's not that
simple.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's what we always
do.'

‘Not always. We never used to.
Only since you started secondary school and Mum lets us go on the train on our
own.'

‘Exactly. It's become a
habit. Gran expects to see us now every week. She looks forward to it.'

‘Yeah! So do I. But Gran
wouldn't hold you to it if you had something else to do. Neither would Mum.
Mum's always telling you to get out and spend time with your new
girl-mates.'

Suddenly she looks up at me with her
wide, candid eyes. ‘All I'm saying is no one is
forcing
you to
go to see Gran. Not me, not Gran and certainly not Mum, so don't make out we
are. If you want to stay home sometimes and meet
up with your friends, that's fine. OK? What's
difficult about that?'

I stare at her furiously then resort to
my usual clincher for winning an argument with my sister. ‘You wouldn't
understand. You're too young.'

Gran lives alone in a bungalow on the
edge of the small town of Blackett. It takes about an hour to get there. Blackett
isn't the sort of place my friends would ever go to. It doesn't have
enough of a High Street for Lissa or Tash and it's too environmentally
unfriendly for Ali. Not enough green spaces. In fact, the only green spaces I can
think of are the football pitch, where the local team Blackett United play, and the
park alongside it. My dad used to play on that pitch. You can catch a glimpse of it
down below out of Gran's front window.

Gran is Dad's mum. Dad is mad
about football, like me. We used to go to watch West Park Wanderers together, just
the two of us, and Jade stayed home with Mum because she was too little. It was ace.
Mum used to joke that she
should've
called me Daniel instead of Danielle because Dad treated me like the son he never
had.

We don't watch the Wanderers
together any more though. Dad moved down south for work a few years ago and when he
came back there was a really bad atmosphere in the house, and then last year he and
Mum got divorced. Now he takes his new wife's sons with him to watch some
rubbish local team instead.

I miss my dad.

Gran does too. That's one of the
reasons I like going to see her. She's got photos of us all around her sitting
room and he's in most of them, though in the most recent ones it's just
him and Jade and me. We talk about him lots in her house and it makes me feel as if
he's still here instead of miles and miles and miles away.

At home the only photos of Dad are in
Jade's bedroom and mine. Mum doesn't mention Dad much, so neither do we
in case it upsets her.

True to form Gran opens the door and
announces, ‘You just missed him on the phone. He says he'll call you
later.'

Gran is small like me and her hair is
cropped
short like mine too (though hers
is iron-grey and mine's a sort of sandy colour) but that's where the
resemblance ends. We have very different clothes sense. She favours long flowing
skirts and layers of floaty tops and beads and rings and bangles, whereas I'm
more of a jeans or tracky-pants kind of girl. We are similar in other ways though.
Both of us are always on the go.

Gran used to be a teacher but
she's retired now. From teaching that is, not from everything else.
She's always swimming or playing tennis or badminton or golf, plus she belongs
to a book group, she works in a charity shop and she's a school governor too.
I get my sportiness from her. That's how I ended up at Riverside Academy for
Girls.

When Gran first suggested I try out for
Riverside I said, ‘No way! I don't want to go to an all-girls'
school!' But then we looked it up online and discovered it had a fantastic
reputation for sport, so I agreed to sit the entrance test. Then, lo and behold, I
ended up being offered the free sports scholarship and Mum and Gran persuaded me it
would be a good idea to take it.

I'm glad I did. I thought it would be full of snobby posh girls who were
really up themselves but it's not. Well, Lissa's posh, her
family's really well off and her house looks like something out of a magazine,
according to Ali who's been there for tea, but she's not a snob.
She's mad about sport too and she's really good at hockey, though not as
good as me. (It's the truth, I'm not boasting!) Everyone voted for me to
be hockey captain, not her. It didn't stop us becoming good friends though,
and we sit next to each other in class.

Tash and Ali sit in front of us.
They're not posh at all. Tash lives in one of the tower blocks on the Borne
Hill Estate and she won a scholarship too, an academic one cos she's dead
brainy, though you wouldn't think it when you first meet her. She's into
fashion mags and the celeb world. Ali lives in an ordinary house like ours, even
though her sister really
is
a celebrity, and she's passionate about
the environment. Neither Tash nor Ali is the slightest bit up themselves, though
they've got loads to be big-headed about.

Actually, there are some real airheads
at Riverside Academy, if I'm honest. Three spring
to mind immediately, called Georgia, Zadie and Chantelle. They are
totally obsessed with their appearance so I gave them a nickname straight away and
the name stuck. Now everyone knows them as the Barbies and they're so stupid
they think it's a compliment. They spread a rumour round, about Tash's
mum being an alcoholic, because they saw her stumbling about in town. But now
she's been diagnosed with MS, they're the ones who look pathetic.

I don't miss my old friends much.
You see, they were mainly boys and I still kick a football around in the street with
most of them because they live nearby. But the thing I really miss about my new
secondary school is playing footie in a proper team. At my primary school I was the
captain of the football team. But Riverside Academy for Girls doesn't play
football.

‘What's for lunch?'
asks Jade, sniffing appreciatively. Gran always cooks us something nice to eat,
another good reason for going to see her every week.

‘Thai green curry, a new recipe.
It's ready when you are.'

My mouth is watering. But I say,
‘Mind if I have mine a bit later, Gran?'

She laughs. ‘Go on then!' she says. ‘It can wait. You're
just like your father was, always itching to be outside in the fresh air. Go and run
some of that energy off in the park and don't come back till you've
built up an appetite.' Gran turns to Jade. ‘I picked up a couple of
books for you this week that someone brought into the shop. Do you want them now or
after lunch?'

‘Now!' says Jade, her eyes
shining, and they disappear into the house together in search of magic and mystery.
How can two sisters be so different?

‘See you later!' I shout,
hitching my bag back on to my shoulder, and set off down the hill. At the bottom
there's a public loo and I nip inside. I take a hoody from my bag and pull it
on over my T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, staring at myself thoughtfully in the
mirror.

I look like a boy.

‘Hi,' I say to my reflection
in my normal voice. I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, tuck my chin in and
try again.

‘Hiya!' My voice is deeper
now and carries more. I cough and clear my throat and drop another octave.

‘All right?' I say to the mirror and now my voice is husky, almost
gravelly.

I can even sound like a boy if I
try.

A woman comes in, looks at me startled,
and scuttles into a cubicle. She must wonder what on earth this crazy guy is doing
in the Ladies, talking to himself. I grin wryly at myself and then glance at my
watch.

Time to go.