Diamond Girls Read online

  ‘You’re the eldest.’

  ‘I’m not going to be here much longer. Then you’ll be the eldest. See how you like it.’ Martine marched off upstairs, still texting.

  ‘OK, I’m in charge now,’ said Jude. ‘You’re not allowed out the house, Rochelle, do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you. I can hardly help hearing you, you’re bellowing right in my ear,’ said Rochelle. ‘But I don’t have to do what you say.’

  ‘She’s talking sense, Roxanne,’ said Bruce. ‘You can’t go off by yourself. You’re not old enough.’

  Rochelle stood up, tossing back her golden curls. ‘Number one – my name is Rochelle. Number two – I’m a teenager, very nearly, and can do what I please. Number three – you certainly can’t boss me about, Mr Weirdo Guy.’ She flounced out of the room.

  ‘I’ll tell Mum,’ Jude called.

  ‘And I’ll tell Mum you’ve been fighting,’ Rochelle yelled.

  She slammed right out of the front door, banging it hard. There was a second of silence. Then we heard the baby start wailing.

  ‘Shall we tell Mum?’ I asked.

  ‘I think so,’ said Jude.

  ‘I know so,’ said Bruce. ‘I’ll tell her, and then I’d better go after Miss Fancy Pants, though she certainly won’t thank me for it.’

  He knocked on the living-room door and then tried to go in. Mum was starting to change Sundance. She told Bruce to go away. She used short, sharp words.

  Bruce looked very put out when he came back. ‘Your mum was very rude to me,’ he said.

  ‘She’s not herself,’ I said quickly.

  ‘I’m only trying to help,’ said Bruce. ‘Roxanne – Rochelle – whatever – shouldn’t be strutting round an estate like this all by herself. Look what happened to Jude, and she’s older and got a lot more sense.’

  Jude looked pleased at this. ‘Let’s go after her in your van, Bruce.’

  I went with them. We drove up and down Mercury Street. Our end was the worst, with many of the houses boarded up. Some of the houses at the other end had curtains at the windows and neat grass at the front. Several even had flowers and little white picket fences.

  ‘Maybe it’s not too bad round here after all,’ said Bruce.

  Then he drove through the tower-block entrance. We looked up at the stained concrete and rusted railings, up and up and up, to the very top.

  ‘I wonder if you can get out on the roof?’ said Jude.

  ‘I’ve just said you were a girl with common sense,’ said Bruce. ‘How could you have such a crazy idea?’

  ‘I went up on the roof heaps of times in our old flats,’ said Jude. ‘It was my territory.’

  Some boys went rattling past on skateboards, bashing on the van and making rude signs at us.

  ‘It looks like it’s their territory, Jude, like it or lump it. You try going up those stairs again and they’ll likely toss you right over the balcony.’

  ‘Wait till I get the hang of this Wing Chun,’ Jude muttered. ‘I’ll go anywhere I want and no one will dare lift a finger.’

  ‘Dream on, girl,’ said Bruce. ‘There’s a limit, even with martial arts. It’s fine in the movies – Bruce Lee can take on any number of opponents and chop-chop-chop-kick they all go flying. Their weapons hurtle up into the air and circle back and they get sliced to ribbons with their own swords. But it’s fantasy, Jude. A little game of Let’s Pretend.’

  I was playing my own game of Let’s Pretend. I played Bruce was our real uncle and he was taking us out for a drive in his van and we were going to Disneyland, a brand-new one conveniently situated down the road and round the corner. We’d hurtle up Space Mountain and whiz round the Indiana Jones ride and all the other stuff the kids at my old school showed off about. I’d maybe get a little bit scared. Uncle Bruce would sit me on his knee and tell me he’d look after me, and I didn’t have to worry about anything any more. I didn’t have to worry about my new friend Mary, I didn’t have to worry about my mum, I didn’t have to worry about any of my sisters – not even my brand-new baby sister in her blue boys’ outfits.

  When we were done with all the rides we’d go and have tea in McDonald’s, and Uncle Bruce wouldn’t nag me about eating meat; he’d buy me a portion of french fries and I’d share them chip for chip with Bluebell.

  I thought of Bluebell without her head. I could see the stuffing, the sad dead body.

  I couldn’t tell.

  But what if something bad really happened to Rochelle?

  ‘I don’t think Rochelle’s round here,’ I said. ‘I have a feeling she might just be in McDonald’s.’

  ‘You have a feeling?’ said Jude. ‘Oh, Dixie, you’re impossible. Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘You hate telltales.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s only if you tell tales on me,’ said Jude. ‘You must always always always snitch on Rochelle because she’s so stupid she’ll get up to anything. So why McDonald’s? Is she meeting someone there? Dixie, tell!’

  ‘She said she’d tear Bluebell’s head off if I did,’ I said, clutching Bluebell tight in both hands. I could feel her small bird-heart beating under her feathers. She gave tiny cheeps of terror.

  ‘I won’t let her, don’t worry, Dixie,’ said Bruce.

  ‘She is meeting someone?’

  I wriggled my shoulders. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But she doesn’t know anyone here.’ Then Jude clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh God. Not the guy with the earring, the one I beat up?’

  Jude didn’t beat up any of them the way I remembered it, but maybe she liked pretending too. I nodded.

  ‘I can’t believe she could be such an idiot! And you’re an idiot too, Dixie, keeping quiet about it.’

  ‘Hey, hey, that’s unfair! It’s not Dixie’s fault,’ said Bruce.

  He drove out of the Mercury block, passing Neptune and Mars and Saturn and Venus and Jupiter, all as towering and terrifying. He headed towards the town.

  ‘It’s quite a walk. Rochelle was wearing her wibble-wobble heels. Maybe she won’t have got there yet,’ said Jude. She reached over and took hold of my hand. ‘Sorry, Dix. Of course it’s not your fault.’

  ‘Do you think he might hit her, like the boys hit you, Jude?’

  ‘No,’ said Jude, though she didn’t sound sure.

  ‘Might he do worse things?’ I whispered.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Bruce. ‘You’re just frightening yourselves. He’s not going to do anything untoward in McDonald’s, for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘But he could take her off anywhere afterwards,’ said Jude. ‘Can’t we go any quicker?’

  ‘It’s not going to help if I get done for speeding,’ said Bruce, but he put his foot down on the accelerator.

  We drove round the streets in the town centre, Jude staring at one side, me the other, straining to see the familiar golden M.

  ‘There it is!’ I cried.

  Bruce parked the van on a double yellow line while Jude and I went running inside. There was no sign of Rochelle. I chewed on my fingers, panicking. Jude spotted a sign to the seating upstairs. She went rushing up and up, past the toilets and into the big room above. I went charging after her.

  We saw Rochelle sitting in the corner, side by side with Ryan. Their heads were close. They were gazing into each other’s eyes. Rochelle had her favourite McFlurry ice cream but her spoon was poised in mid-air. She was obviously so entranced she was forgetting all about eating. Ryan didn’t look at all like he wanted to hit her or hurt her. He was gazing at her as if she was a princess with a jewelled crown on top of her long fair hair. Rochelle and Ryan seemed to shine in their own little spotlight, as if the McDonald’s yellow arch was giving out its own golden glow.

  I stopped still. I felt we should tiptoe away. Jude hesitated too, but then she marched over to them.

  ‘Leave my sister alone!’ she yelled, though Ryan wasn’t even touching Rochelle.

  ‘Oh God, it’s not you again,’ said Ryan. ‘What your problem?’