Bad Girls Read online

  It was almost a relief when Mum made me brush my hair back into its old style after Tanya had gone over the road.

  ‘I know you think you look wonderful, Mandy,’ said Mum, snorting. ‘But I don’t think that style really suits you.’

  ‘I think she looks very grown-up,’ said Dad, seeing me drooping.

  Mum frowned. ‘That’s just the point. Mandy’s still a little girl. That style’s much too sophisticated. And a bit common, if you must know.’

  ‘Still, it was very kind of Tanya to give Mandy that hair thingy,’ said Dad.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Mum. ‘Did she buy it for you specially, Mandy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I mumbled. I pretended to yawn. ‘I’m ever so sleepy. I think I’ll go to bed.’

  I just wanted to get away from Mum and Dad. But I couldn’t get to sleep. I lay awake fingering the scrunchie. I didn’t know if you could buy them everywhere, or just in the corner shop. What if it was a special one – and Mrs Patel realized one was missing from her shelf? What if she’d even seen Tanya take it? What if she saw me wearing the green velvet scrunchie? Did that make me a thief, because I knew it was stolen?

  When I eventually got to sleep I dreamt about it. Mrs Patel stopped me in the street and called me a thief. Mr Patel came out of the shop and he called me a thief too. Everyone in the street started staring. There were people from school there. Mrs Stanley and Mrs Edwards shaking their heads and looking very stern. Kim and Melanie and Sarah were standing in a row, chanting ‘Thief, thief, thief’, their teeth gleaming. And Mum and Dad were there, and they were saying it too, and they were crying, and I was crying too . . .

  I woke up in a sweat, still hearing the word thief ringing in my ears. It was the middle of the night now, and the dark made it even more scary. I got up and shoved the scrunchie right at the back of my underwear drawer. Then I lay down again and tried hard to play a pretend game. I was Miranda Rainbow and she never lay awake in a blue funk at nights; she slept soundly in her rainbow sheets, a different colour for every day, and then she got up and had a soak in her jacuzzi and then she got dressed in . . . I tried on various imaginary outfits as if I was a paper doll, and eventually fell asleep again.

  I stayed being Miranda Rainbow in my dream and I was still trying on different clothes because I was a famous fashion model now, and I strode up and down the catwalk while the cameras flashed and everything seemed wonderful but then I had to put on this new outfit, a green, velvet, tight dress with a big matching hairband, a huge scrunchie almost like a pullon hat, and everyone saw me wearing it and suddenly stood up and started yelling ‘Thief!’ and I tried to take the scrunchie off but it was too tight, it was tied so tightly round my head I could hardly breathe, it was right over my eyes and blocking my nose and gagging my mouth so that I couldn’t even scream . . .

  I woke up gasping and sobbing, stuck right down under the bedclothes. I must have made a noise after all because Mum came running.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, darling?’

  ‘I – I just had a horrid dream,’ I said, wiping my face with the sheet.

  ‘Hey, don’t do that! Let’s find you a hankie, you poor little moppet,’ said Mum, cuddling me close. ‘What was this horrid dream about, eh?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I lied, clinging to Mum. ‘But it was just so scary.’

  ‘There. Mummy’s here now,’ said Mum, rocking me.

  She tucked me up tight with Olivia Orang-Utan and promised me I’d go straight back to sleep and I wouldn’t have any more bad dreams.

  I tried to believe her. But it didn’t work out that way. I was still awake when Dad’s alarm went off in the morning.

  I felt horrible and headachy at breakfast.

  ‘You and your nightmares,’ said Mum. ‘Poor old Mandy.’ She pulled my plaits fondly.

  ‘Where’s the trendy new hairstyle?’ said Dad.

  Mum frowned at him. ‘I think Mandy’s seen sense. It’s not really suitable.’ Mum folded her arms. ‘I’m not too sure about this friendship with Tanya, you know. Mandy’s started seeing such a lot of her. She’s much too old for Mandy. She’s a bad influence.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked hoarsely.

  ‘Well, you’re starting to act really cheeky at times, Mandy. All that business after school yesterday . . . I hate the idea of you going to that park with Tanya. Nowhere’s safe nowadays.’

  ‘I think young Tanya can look after herself– and our Mandy,’ said Dad.

  ‘I’m still not at all keen on them being so friendly. I don’t mind Mandy having Tanya over here where I can keep an eye on things, but I don’t want them going off together and getting into mischief,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a bit of a risk, a girl with Tanya’s background. I’ve a good mind to stop Mandy seeing her altogether.’

  I stiffened. ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Dad. ‘The girls are good friends. It’s great to see Mandy having a bit of fun. And she needs a friend right now, especially after all this bullying business at school.’

  That sidetracked Mum.

  ‘Has all that stopped now, Mandy?’ she asked. ‘Kim doesn’t say nasty things to you now?’

  ‘She doesn’t say anything now,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you keep well out of their way,’ said Mum.

  I did my best. They didn’t hang round near me and whisper things that morning. It looked as if Tanya had scared them off.

  She’d been so great to stand up to them like that. She was a truly wonderful friend. And she’d only taken that green hairband as a special present for me. I’d been silly to get so worked up about it. Why did I have to be such a goody-goody baby all the time?

  I sat next to Arthur King at lunchtime and then afterwards he tried to teach me how to play chess. It got ever so boring. I wanted to let my mind wander and think about Tanya meeting me from school and how we were going to be friends for ever and ever.

  ‘No, look, if you put your queen there I’ll be able to take it with my knight,’ said Arthur.

  I couldn’t get worked up about it. The queen didn’t have long hair and a flowing dress, the knight didn’t have shining armour and a plume in his helmet. They were just twirly pieces of plastic with no personality whatsoever.

  Arthur beat me so easily at chess that it wasn’t even fun for him.

  ‘Don’t you like chess, Mandy?’ he said, setting up the pieces again.

  ‘Not really, no,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you’ll like it when you get better at it,’ said Arthur. ‘I was kind of hoping we could play every lunchtime.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said vaguely.

  ‘And if you’re with me then Kim and Melanie and Sarah will keep away,’ said Arthur.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I think I’ve scared them off,’ said Arthur. ‘They won’t do anything if I’m here to look after you.’

  ‘Oh, Arthur!’ I said, too amazed to be tactful. He was the cleverest boy in our class but he was also the dimmest too. ‘That’s nothing to do with you. It’s because of my friend Tanya.’

  Arthur looked wounded. ‘How can it be this Tanya friend of yours? She’s not here. Though it sometimes feels as though she is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you just keep yap yap yapping about her. My friend Tanya says this. My friend Tanya says that. On and on. And it isn’t even as if she ever says anything that sounds remotely interesting. It’s all make-up and clothes and what-the-stars-say and that rubbish.’

  ‘Are you saying my friend Tanya talks rubbish?’ I said indignantly.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never talked to her myself. But you just talk rubbish now, when you yack on about her.’

  ‘Well, you can play your silly chess games by yourself, then,’ I said, and I slammed down the pocket set with such force that all the remaining pieces jumped out of their holes and bounced on the black and white squares.

  I stalked off by myself, though I knew it was a mistake. I wandered the playground for a bit and t