Page 126 of The One Plus One
‘Is it…because of me?’
‘What?’
‘Not wanting to do maths any more. Is that what’s making you sad?’
And then Mum’s eyes filled with tears and Tanzie felt like she’d somehow made things even worse. ‘No, Tanze,’ she said, and pulled her close. ‘No, darling. It is absolutely nothing to do with you and maths. That is the last thing you should think.’
But she didn’t get up.
So Tanzie was walking along the road with two pounds fifteen in her pocket that Nicky had given her, even though she could tell he thought a card was a stupid idea, and wondering if it was better to get a cheaper card and some chocolate or if a cheap card spoiled the whole point of a card full stop when a car pulled up alongside. She thought it was someone going to ask for directions to Beachfront (people were always asking for directions to Beachfront) but it was Jason Fisher.
‘Oi. Freak,’ he said, and she kept walking. His hair was gelled up in spikes and his eyes were narrowed, like he spent his whole life squinting at things he didn’t like.
‘I said, Freak.’
Tanzie tried not to look at him. Her heart had begun to thump. She began to walk a little bit faster.
He pulled forward a bit, so that she thought maybe he was going to go away. But he stopped the car and got out and swaggered over so that he was in front of her and she couldn’t actually go any further without pushing past him. He leant to one side, like he was explaining something to someone stupid.
‘It’s rude not to answer someone when they’re talking to you. Did your mum never tell you that?’
Tanzie was so frightened that she couldn’t talk. She just shook her head.
‘Where’s your brother?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her voice came out as a whisper.
‘Yes, you do, you little four-eyed freak. Your brother thinks he’s been a bit clever messing around with my Facebook.’
‘He didn’t,’ she said. But she was a really bad liar and she knew as soon as she’d said it that he knew she was lying.
He took two steps towards her. ‘You tell him that I’m going to have him, the cocky little shit. He thinks he’s so clever. Tell him I’m going to mess with his profile for real.’
The other Fisher, the cousin whose name she never remembered, muttered something to him that Tanzie couldn’t hear. They were all out of the car now, walking slowly towards her.
‘Yeah,’ Jason Fisher said. ‘Your brother needs to understand something. He messes with something of mine, we mess around with something of his.’ He liftedhis chin and spat noisily on the pavement. It sat there in front of her, a great green slug. Tanzie hesitated, not wanting to tread in it.
She wondered if they could see how hard she was breathing.
‘Get in the car.’
‘What?’
‘Get in the fucking car.’
‘No.’ She began to back away from them. She glanced around her, trying to work out if anyone was coming down the road. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a bird in a cage.
‘Get in the fucking car, Costanza.’ He said it like her name was something disgusting. She wanted to run then but she was really bad at running – her legs always swung out to the sides at the wrong angle – and she knew they would catch her. She wanted to cross the road and turn back towards home but she knew that as soon as she started to run they would get her. And then a hand landed on her shoulder.
‘Look at her hair.’
‘You know about boys, Four Eyes?’
‘Course she doesn’t know about boys. Look at the state of her.’
‘She’s got lipstick on, the little tart. Still fugly, though.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t have to look at its face, do you?’ They started laughing. Her voice came out sounding like someone else’s: ‘Just leave me alone. Nicky didn’t do anything. We just want to be left alone.’
