He held open his pocket for the girls to drop fistfuls of shiny triangles into his apron. When Sunny asked why Freya had sent them, Lucas shrugged.
“I showed her how to make them.” An effortless explanation that Win wouldn’t have been able to offer if someone had seen her Pride flag. She darted a glance at Sophie, wondering if Lucas’s gift had made her question whether Win had received one, but all Sophie’s attention was on the parcel in Lucas’s hand.
“So…” Sophie nodded to the half-opened parcel in Lucas’s hand. “Who’s next?”
They drew closer together to watch, Lucas making quick work of the rest of the paper, scrunching it into a ball that he shoved inside his apron pocket before turning the parcel over to reveal the lucky winner.
“No.” Sophie’s voice turned harsh with horror. “Absolutely not.”
“Huh?” Lucas was frowning at the parcel in his hands like the name was hard to read.
Next to her, Sunny muttered an excited, “Ooh, I know that one!” Like this was a test she’d been pleased to pass.
As per usual, Win remained without a clue.
“Can someone tell me who Ryan Krikler is?”
SOPHIE
Curiosity burned through every part of Sophie’s body – hotter, more insistent that any of the aches that had her adjusting the way she sat.
If she’d been the one left with the parcel, she’d have opened it; to hell with the rules.
As it was, she’d have to wait until Lucas took it to give to Ryan at Kellan’s party. A thought that soured the anticipation she’d been feeling all week.
As they pulled out of Rabscuttle’s drive, she became aware of Sunny’s jiggle. She counted two fields before Win’s patience gave out.
“Bie dong.”
The jiggling stopped.
“What language is that?” Sophie asked. Neutral territory that had nothing to do with Freya or Lucas or the name written on the next layer of paper.
“Mandarin,” Win said, slowing as a pheasant made a bolt for it across the road. If Sophie’s brother had been driving, she’d be clinging onto the door and praying for a swift death along these country lanes. With Win at the wheel, the car remained on the correct side of the road without threatening to lurch into a ditch at every corner.
“Are you bilingual?”
“I’m fluent enough to get by.”
“She’s being modest,” Sunny bellowed from the backseat. “She got a 9 in her GCSE and last summer, when we stayed with our grandparents, they kept saying how amazing she was and looking at me like I was a changeling who brought nothing but shame and disappointment.”
Win rolled her eyes, leaning forward to check both ways before they pulled out onto the main road. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“I spent a whole meal singing all the songs from The Greatest Showman under my breath and no one noticed. That’s how little they want to hear my terrible English accent.”
“Your English accent’s just fine.”
Something vaguely related to a smile tugged at Sophie’s lips. Win’s humour suited her.
“So.” Sunny plunged forward and Sophie tried not to roll her eyes. The combination of her bad mood and the pain made it harder to humour Sunny’s constant need for attention. “That was a bit of an Iron Man moment back there.”
“What does that mean?” Sophie said, since Win clearly wasn’t going to.
“With the Big T/Lucas thing. Like at the end of Iron Man. When Tony Stark’s all, I’m Iron Man.”
“If you say so.”
Sunny ploughed on. “God. Lucas better not be like Tony Stark.”
“I thought everyone loved him after the last movie?”
Win muttered a warning, “Don’t get her started…” as Sunny shouted, “A CHARACTER REDEMPTION ARC DOESN’T EXCUSE A LONG HISTORY OF BEING AN ASS-HOLE.”
“Your favourite character is Loki,” Win said mildly.
“Lies! You know it’s Hulk!”
Sophie stopped listening, her thoughts boomeranging back to the moment pass the parcel stopped being fun. Maybe her mood could have recovered from the Big T/Lucas reveal if she’d been given time to retro-fit a theory for why Freya never thought it was important enough to mention, but Ryan?
“This party tonight.” Sunny again. “Is it strictly Year 11s only?”
“You’d have to ask Kellan.”
“Yes. About him. Who is he?”
“Freya’s ex.”
“And?”
“Lucas’s pal.”
“And?”
Sophie closed her eyes. How did Win not have a permanent migraine? Or a criminal record for sororicide?
“Ryan’s cousin,” she said.
“And we don’t like Ryan.”
“Sunny. Could you maybe shut up?” Win was glaring in the rear-view mirror, but venting about Ryan was something Sophie could get behind.
“We hate Ryan.”
“When you say ‘we’…”
“Freya. Me. Anyone who talks to him for more than thirty seconds.”
“He can’t be that bad…”
“He can. He is.” Rage hotter than lava solidified into loud, sharp words. “He was. To Freya.”
September – 113 days before Freya left
On his first day, the new Year 11 English teacher walked in, said nothing and wrote MR COCKBURN right across the middle of the whiteboard.
Then he turned to the class and said, “Hi.”
As soon as the noise died down, Cockburn invited them to make all the jokes they could about his name to “get it out of their system” – offering a prize to anyone who could come up with something he’d not heard before. So they did. For five minutes they shouted abuse at their teacher, everyone cracking up and trying to out-do themselves. Once the jokes dried up, Cockburn moved on from his name to the concept of euphemisms. Getting them into pairs, he assigned each a theme – death, sex, pregnancy, drugs and so on – and asked them to write a script between someone who was trying to communicate that concept to the other, without ever actually saying the word.
Writing about masturbation was A Lot for Sophie’s first day back at school, but Freya was happy to take over, cackling away at her own wit.
“You know he’s going to make us read this out?” Sophie said in horror as Freya wrote the immortal line Don’t tell me you’ve never flicked your bean?
“No way. This is a hand-in piece for sure.” She didn’t even look up from the paper. “Help me think of a really innocent bean-based joke.”
“Please take the flicking the bean bit out…” Sophie tried to reach across and put a line through it. “Stick to all the guy stuff, there’s loads for them.”
“Coward.” Freya elbowed her away, grinning.
Once the time was up, everyone looked very pleased with themselves and Sophie followed Freya’s glance back to where Ryan was rocking his chair against the back wall, hands crossed behind his head. Next to him Joe T was grinning away, and the two of them looked unbelievably smug.
When Ryan caught them looking, he gave Freya a vicious scowl and mouthed, “What?”