‘Do you want me to go over there?’
Even as he asked he slightly regretted it. Because even though he really liked Mr Nicholls he knew better than anyone that you couldn’t make someone stay with you. There was no point trying to hang on to someone who didn’t want you.
It’s possible she’d told him because she didn’t have anyone else to tell. ‘I loved him, Nicky. I know it sounds stupid after such a short time, but I loved him.’ It was a shock to hear her say it. All that emotion, just blurted out there. But just for once it didn’t make him want to run. Nicky sat on the bed, leant over and, although he still felt a bit weird about actual physical contact, he hugged her. And she felt really small, even though he’d always thought of her as sort of bigger than he was. And she rested her head against him and he just felt really, really sad because for once he did want to say something but he didn’t know what.
It was at that point that Norman’s barking got hysterical. Like when he saw the cows in Scotland. Nicky pulled back, distracted. ‘He sounds like he’s going insane.’
‘Bloody dog. It’ll be that chihuahua from fifty-six.’ Jess sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘I swear it torments him on purpose.’
Nicky climbed off the bed and walked over to the window. Norman was in the garden, barking hysterically, his head thrust through the gap in the fence where the wood was rotten and two of the panels had half broken away. It took him a few seconds to register that he didn’t look like Norman. The dog was weirdly upright, his hair bristling. Nicky pulled the curtain back further, and it was then that he saw Tanzie across the road. There were two Fishers and a boy he didn’t recognize and they had backed her up against the wall. As Nicky watched, one of them grabbed at her jacket and she tried to bat his hand away. ‘Hey! Hey!’ he yelled, but they didn’t hear him. His heart thumping, Nicky wrestled with the sash window but it refused to budge. He banged on the glass, trying to make them stop. ‘HEY! Shit. HEY!’
‘What?’ said Jess, swivelling in the bed.
‘Fishers.’
They heard Tanzie’s high-pitched scream. As Jess dived out of bed, Norman stilled for a split second, then hurled himself against the weakest section of the fence. He went through it like a canine battering ram, sending pieces of wood splintering into the air around him. Straight towards the sound of Tanzie’s voice. Nicky saw the Fishers spin round to see this enormous black missile coming for them and their mouths opened. And then he heard the screech of brakes, a surprisingly loud whumph, Jess’s Oh, God, oh, God and then a silence that seemed to go on and on for ever.
29.
Tanzie
Tanzie had sat in her room for almost an hour trying to draw Mum a card. She couldn’t work out what to put on it. Mum seemed like she was sick, but Nicky said she wasn’t really sick, not like Mr Nicholls had been sick, so it didn’t seem right to write a Get Well Soon card. She thought about writing ‘Be Happy!’ but it sounded like an instruction. Or even an accusation. And then she thought about just writing ‘I Love You’ but she’d wanted to do it in red and all her red felt-tips had run out. So then she thought she’d buy a card because Mum always said that Dad had never bought her a single one, apart from a really cheesy padded Valentine’s Day card once when they were courting. And she burst out laughing at the word ‘courting’.
Mostly Tanzie just wanted her to cheer up. A mum should be in charge, taking care of things and bustling around downstairs, not lying up there in the dark, like she was really a million miles away. It made Tanzie fearful. Ever since Mr Nicholls had gone, the house had felt weirdly quiet and a massive lump had lodged itself in her stomach, like something bad was about to happen. She had crept into Mum’s room that morning when she woke up and crawled into bed with her for a cuddle and Mum had put her arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was a bit greasy and she had no makeup on but Tanzie nestled into her anyway. ‘Are you ill, Mum?’ she’d said.
‘I’m just tired, Tanze,’ Mum’s voice did sound like the saddest, tiredest thing in the world. ‘I’ll get up soon. I promise.’
‘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.