Lydia smiled. She’d never heard that expression before. She looked at Anne and her smile faded away to nothing. She looked around. The caretaker had disappeared.
He’s probably racing back for his tea, Lydia thought, dejected.
She’d been hoping he’d march her right out of the school, locking the gates behind her. That would’ve been so wonderful! Lydia sniffed, hugging her coat tighter around her. The freezing November wind was trying to blow straight through her. She glanced up at the mid-grey sky. She hadn’t seen one scrap of clear, sunny sky since she and her family had moved to Yorkshire. At least, that’s what it felt like.
‘It’s all right. Old Baldie’s gone,’ Anne said. ‘Come on, now’s your chance.’
‘Oh, Anne, I . . . Are you sure I won’t get caught?’ Lydia said.
She didn’t walk back to the assembly hall. Her feet didn’t want to move.
‘Of course you won’t.
We
didn’t.’ Anne’s smile was broad. ‘Does that mean you’re going to do it?’
In the long pause that followed, the howling wind around them began to drop. A sudden thought had Lydia smiling inwardly with intense relief.
‘How do I get the cup out of the cabinet? Surely the cabinet will be locked?’ Lydia fought to keep the grin off her face.
Maybe she could get out of it after all!
‘Ah, we Cosmics know a little secret about the cabinet,’ Anne said excitedly.
Lydia’s heart sank down to the heels of her socks.
‘If you bang upwards on the underside of the cabinet, the left door will fly open. Then you can reach in and get the cup. When you shut the cabinet door afterwards, it’ll lock automatically.’
‘Anne . . . can’t I do something else? I’ll do anything else. If I get caught and my mum and dad find out . . .’ Lydia trailed off miserably. She dreaded to think
what
they would do.
Anne’s eyes narrowed. ‘Lydia, you’ve got a decision to make. I thought we’d be doing you a favour by letting you join our group, but if you don’t want to belong that’s up to you. The choice is yours.’ And with that, Anne marched away.
‘Anne, wait, please . . .’
Lydia was left staring after her helplessly. As Lydia watched, Anne strode out of the school gates and turned up the road. Lydia looked around. She’d never heard the school so quiet. Now that the wind had died down, there was no sound at all – just the rasp of her own anxious breathing.
Lydia walked slowly back into the assembly hall, her feet dragging. Closing the door very quietly behind her, she automatically reached out for the light switch. Her hand was on it before she remembered Old Baldie.
‘Lydia, what are you doing?’ she muttered to herself.
The hall was in semi-darkness with the lights off. There was just enough daylight coming in from outside through the high windows to cast silver-grey streaks of light throughout the assembly hall. Lydia started to walk across to the trophy cabinet but her shoes clicked and echoed on the wooden parquet floor like tap-shoes. Raising her heels, Lydia tiptoed the rest of the way, wincing as even the soles of her shoes still made a noise.
And there was the sports cup. It now looked dull and shadowy in the half light of the hall.
‘What should I do?’ Lydia whispered.
If she took the cup and could put it back without being found out, she’d be part of the Cosmics. Anne had started the Cosmics and it hadn’t taken Lydia long to learn that
everyone
wanted to belong to Anne’s group. Lydia suspected it had more to do with the fact that Anne’s dad owned the local electronics shop than for any other reason. That meant Anne always brought in the latest gadgets from her dad’s shop for the Cosmics to use – digital voice recorders, a voice-activated smartphone, MP3 players and the latest computer games. She’d even once brought in a state-of-the-art camcorder, which was about a quarter of the size of a standard paperback book. Anne had them all.
Lydia didn’t care about that so much. She wanted to belong to the Cosmics because then she’d be in the same secret club as Frances – or Frankie as she made everyone call her. Anne, Bharti and Maxine were all right – although Anne was a bit too bossy for Lydia’s liking – but Frankie was the real reason Lydia wanted to join the Cosmics. Lydia really liked Frankie.
Frankie had volunteered to take care of Lydia from Lydia’s first day at Collivale School and now they were best friends. It felt like they’d been best friends for ever instead of just for three weeks. Lydia had found someone like her: someone who loved comics and carrots, someone who hated anything with cabbage in it and who thought that circus clowns were boring.
‘So, take the cup,’ Lydia told herself.
It was the only way to keep her new friends, to become a part of this strange, new school. If she didn’t take it, Anne would delight in telling everyone just how much of a chicken she was. Lydia could hear Anne already.
‘. . . all that talk and she couldn’t even take the cup. These Londoners . . .’
Lydia sighed deeply. Whichever way she turned, there seemed to be nowhere to go. She stared at the cup cabinet, hating it.
Get it over with, she thought miserably.
But to steal . . .
But to lose her friends . . .
It was getting darker now. Lydia shivered. She gathered all of her rapidly disappearing courage to her like a winter coat. Stepping forward, she pulled at the cabinet doors. They were locked. Taking a deep breath and with the fingers of her left hand crossed, Lydia banged her right fist upwards to meet the underside of the cup cabinet. The left glass door sprung silently open – just as Anne had said it would.
‘Oh no!’ Lydia said, dismayed. She jumped as the tiny words echoed to fill the assembly hall. Lydia’s left fingers slowly uncrossed. The sports cup was now almost completely shrouded in shadow. Lydia stretched out her hand. Tentatively she touched the handle of the cup. She couldn’t get a good grip on it. Her fingers slid down it. Her palms were sweating. Lydia took another step forward. She wiped her perspiring forehead, then wiped her wet hand on her school coat. Her heart was about to burst out of her chest.
This was it. The choice was simple.
Take the cup . . . or lose her friends.
Chapter Two
Daniel Henson
‘Mum? Dad? Can I ask you a question?’ Lydia asked. She speared three peas on her plate with her fork, careful not to look up.
‘Go on then,’ Dad said.
Lydia thought hard, searching for the right words to say without giving away too much.
‘If . . . if someone told you that you had to do something you didn’t want to do, would you still do it?’
‘That would depend on who had asked me, what they’d asked me to do and why they’d asked me to do it,’ Dad replied warily. ‘Why?’
Lydia risked a glance at her mum and dad.
‘No reason. I just wondered.’ She shrugged.
Mum gave Lydia a sharp look. ‘Have you been offered something at school that you shouldn’t have been offered?’
‘Of course not,’ Lydia said, shocked.
‘You haven’t had some strange person stopping their car and offering you a lift, have you?’ Mum asked quickly.
Lydia stared at her mum.
‘For goodness sake, dear! As Danny would say – take a chill pill!’ said Dad. ‘Lydia has brains enough to know that she shouldn’t accept lifts or anything else from strangers.’
Mum took a deep breath. ‘So what’s this all about then?’ she asked, her voice calmer.
‘Honestly!’ Dad shook his head.
‘It was just a . . . a hypothetical question,’ Lydia said.
‘Hhmm! Then I would say that if you’re not sure whether or not to do something, you should let your conscience decide for you,’ said Mum.
Lydia considered. That didn’t help her very much. Besides, it was too late to ask for advice now. What was done was done.
‘So how was your day, Lydia?’
Lydia chewed on her bottom lip. Her head was bent over her dinner plate so she missed the look which passed between her mum and dad.
‘Oh, it was all right – I suppose.’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’ Dad raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s just that . . .’
‘Just that what?’ Dad prompted when Lydia said nothing else.
‘It . . . it doesn’t matter,’ Lydia sighed.
‘Lydia . . . we know all this has been difficult for you,’ Mum said slowly. ‘You’ve had to leave all your friends and your old school behind and I know how happy you were there . . .’
‘It’s all right, Mum – honest,’ Lydia said quickly. ‘It’s prettier up here than in London and Collivale School is OK.’
Lydia hadn’t meant to make her mum feel bad about moving them to Tarwich in Yorkshire. Mum had been promoted by her company but the only snag was that her new job was out of London. Mum and Dad had said it was an opportunity too good to miss. So here they were, three weeks in Tarwich and only just beginning to get to know the people in the small town.
‘Have you made lots of friends?’ Mum asked eagerly.
‘Oh, yes.’ Lydia crossed her fingers under the dinner table. ‘I’ve got a new best friend, Frankie, and I go around with her and Maxine and Bharti and Anne, and lots of the others in the class talk to me . . .’
‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ Mum smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Lydia – you’ll soon settle in. Pretty soon you won’t ever want to leave. My boss was telling me that Tarwich is the kind of place that gets into your blood. Very few people move away from here.’
Lydia smiled weakly. She couldn’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to spend their whole life in a place like Tarwich. There was probably something very funny-peculiar in the water which gave all the grown-ups brain fade or something. That would explain a lot!
‘Danny, chew your food with your mouth shut, please,’ Mum said patiently.
Lydia glanced at her brother with irritation. Danny smiled back at her and opened his mouth wider to display mushed-up peas combined with bits of half-chewed sausage and mashed potatoes. It looked disgusting!
‘Daniel Henson, that’s quite enough of that,’ Mum said sternly.
‘Yeuk! It’s enough to put you off food for life.’ Dad wrinkled up his nose.
Lydia scowled at Danny. He was only ten and already he was a serious pain. What would he be like when he was twice his age? Twice the aggravation? Lydia watched her younger brother wolf down his food. She was getting less and less hungry by the second!
‘Danny, you’re going to get raging indigestion if you carry on like that. Don’t eat so fast,’ said Mum.
‘But I have to,’ Danny protested.
‘Why? Your food’s not going to run away, you know,’ said Dad.
‘I have to finish fast before I lose my appetite!’ grinned Danny, shovelling another forkful into his mouth.
Mum and Dad looked at each other and burst out laughing.
‘Danny, sometimes you talk some real foolishness!’ said Mum.
‘And that’s another reason I don’t like it up here.’ Danny wrinkled up his nose. ‘They all take the mickey out of the way I talk.’
‘They’ll soon get bored doing that,’ said Dad. ‘Just be patient.’
‘And in the meantime you can always tease them back about the way
they
speak.’ Mum winked.
‘That hardly solves the problem, dear,’ Dad said mildly.
Mum looked ashamed. ‘True. Danny, ignore what I just said!’
‘I do that anyway.’ Danny shook out more tomato ketchup over his food.
‘Less of that, you cheeky toad!’ Mum tweaked Danny’s ear. ‘And slow down! You won’t lose your appetite before you’ve finished your food – I promise you!’
Lydia looked at Mum and Dad and her brother Danny. For all Danny’s whining, he was coping better with the move to Tarwich than she was. It was all so strange and new. She still couldn’t get used to looking out of her bedroom window and seeing the moors stretching out beyond the neighbouring houses, towards the horizon. And in the still of the night, she could hear the river rushing and rumbling past their back garden. Lydia longed for houses and yet more houses as far as the eye could see and the rumble of traffic past their house, not a river. She missed London terribly.
‘Danny, I’m not going to tell you again,’ Mum said crossly as he continued to chew with his mouth open.
Lydia glared at her brother, annoyed at having her reverie disrupted. Danny really was too gross! She looked down at her dinner plate again, her fork still in her hand.
‘Lydia, is something wrong?’ Dad leaned forward.
‘What? Er . . . no, I’m fine.’ Lydia tried to smile, but her face felt as if it was twisting horribly instead of smiling, so she gave up the attempt.
‘Are you sure?’
Lydia nodded. ‘I think I’ll go to bed early. I’m just a little bit tired.’