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  ‘I see,’ Dad would say. ‘Now you’re the one that’s the bully.’

  And Derek would snap back, ‘Bullies seem to be better treated. Why not!’

  Trouble added to more trouble, until finally Derek ran away. And it had all begun with Sweeney. Maxine hated him. Everyone in school did. But nothing was ever done about him. Now they all watched helplessly as Paul Wilson’s life was made a living hell by him.

  We should be able to do something! Maxine thought as she watched one day as Sweeney forced Paul to hand over all the money in his pockets. Even that didn’t satisfy Sweeney. He’d replace it, he said, so no one could say he was stealing, then Maxine and half the school watched in horror as he rasped phlegm from the bottom of his throat, held open Paul’s pocket and and grogged it inside.

  Sweeney guffawed with laughter. ‘And there’s plenty more where that came from, Paulyboy. I’ve got an unlimited supply!’

  Paul just stood there, humiliated, red-faced and helpless. What was the point of going to a teacher? What would Sweeney’s punishment be, if any? A reprimand or a few days’ suspension. And then he would be back. And Paul knew what that would mean. So he stood there, his head hanging low, doing nothing.

  As Sweeney was passing her, Maxine couldn’t keep her mouth shut. ‘You’re disgusting!’

  ‘Oh, listen to this, boys!’ He beckoned to his mates. ‘Maxine Moody has a mouth. And it’s too big if you ask me.’

  ‘One day you’re going to be sorry, Sweeney. Somebody’s going to get their own back on you.’

  He stood before her, a tall boy, broad, his mouth always curled into a sneer.

  ‘Well, it’s not going to be your wimp of a brother, is it?’

  He sniggered as he walked away and Maxine angrily shouted after him, ‘He’ll come back one day ... and he’ll get you!’

  That only made him laugh even louder. She was ready to run after him, no matter how many of his so-called friends were with him. Run and kick him and ... suddenly, she was grabbed by the jacket and held back.

  ‘You have got a big mouth!’ It was Cam, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Do you want him to start on you?’

  ‘I’m only a girl. I’m not worth bothering about.’

  ‘There’s always a first time,’ Cam warned her. ‘Why are you so angry?’

  ‘Because I hate Sweeney! I hate this school! I hate my life!’ And she pulled away from him and ran.

  And she did hate her life. No matter what she did, it was always the wrong thing.

  ‘Miracles will never cease,’ her father said one morning at breakfast. ‘Three weeks at school and not a day off. Goodness! What did we do to deserve this?’

  He was waiting to take Mum to her job in a local solicitor’s office. ‘Leave it, Jim,’ her mother said. ‘Just leave it be.’

  Her mother didn’t even want to talk about it.

  Maxine watched as her mother stood up and took the breakfast dishes to the sink.

  Her father was already at the front door. ‘Make sure you get to school today. Why spoil the habit of three weeks?’

  Her mother gave her a small wave as she left, just a fleeting gesture with her hand. Hardly worth the bother really.

  Her real attention, her real goodbye, was for the photograph on the hall table. Derek, taken on his thirteenth birthday, just weeks before he disappeared. Maxine could remember the day well. For once, her bad-tempered, moody brother had been happy. She had saved up for a present for him. A long gold chain with a St Christopher medal attached. She even had the medal engraved with his name: DEREK MOODY. How annoyed she’d been when he seemed embarrassed to wear it. ‘Oh, come on, Maxine! A holy medal!’

  Yet he’d never once taken it off after that day.

  He was laughing as the photo was taken, his face full of mischief. He’d once always been like that. Then he’d grown up, gone to high school, met the wrong people and everything had changed. But his face in the photograph didn’t look as if it was hiding any troubles. Mum’s eyes lingered on it, remembering too. Her mouth turned up at the corners, a faint hint of a smile.

  She never smiles like that at me, Maxine thought.

  Then she kissed her fingertips and placed them lovingly against the glass.

  There was a lump in Maxine’s throat as she watched. Mum repeated the same thing every single day, more love in that simple gesture than she had displayed to Maxine for so long. She didn’t even bother looking back at her as she went out the door.

  What was the use of trying when they didn’t really care what she did? Or where she went? When they wished, her mother especially, that it hadn’t been Derek who had disappeared. When they wished it had been Maxine.

  Well, she wasn’t going to try any longer.

  It had been a long time since she’d challenged the Mighty Zola.

  Today they would do battle again!

  c

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Why did she always feel she was being watched? Guilt, she told herself, as she hurried through the back streets towards Simmy’s. She stopped once and looked around. There were people on the street, a line waiting at a distant bus stop ... a man in his garden arguing with a garden gnome. No one seemed even vaguely interested in her. And yet ... She shivered and scrutinised everyone again. Someone was watching her. That feeling was so strong.

  ‘Not seen you for a while.’ Simmy’s son, Taft, was as fat as his father, his great wobbly bulk covered by a stain-encrusted overall. ‘Been grounded?’

  Maxine didn’t answer. Instead she pointed out one particular stain on his front. ‘Enjoy your tomato soup last night?’ She grinned. ‘Or was it something Bolognese?’

  He looked puzzled as she ran to the Mighty Zola. It would take him all day to figure that one out.

  Mighty Zola was not alone. He was already fighting a deadly battle with a lethal opponent. And losing! Maxine’s name as Champion had been replaced.

  She stiffened when she saw exactly who had replaced her and was even now topping the total of points against his name.

  Cam.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ She snapped the question out angrily, as if he had no right to be here at all. Which, she decided, he hadn’t! ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at school?’

  He didn’t interrupt his battle with Zola. His eyes only glanced in her direction for a second. ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  ‘I got time off, if you must know.’

  He lifted an eyebrow, though he never lost concentration on his game. ‘What for? Good behaviour?’

  ‘What are you doing here anyway? I’ve never seen you at Simmy’s before.’ It wasn’t Cam’s kind of place.

  ‘I have time off too,’ he said, scoring another twenty points. ‘For study.’

  ‘Well, then, shouldn’t you be studying?’

  ‘I don’t need to study. I’m really clever. Didn’t you know?’

  This was obviously Cam trying to be funny.

  ‘You think you’re something. Really clever! Ha!’

  But he was. Really brilliant at this game too. She watched fascinated as points piled upon points. She’d never seen anyone react so quickly, and she realised with a sinking heart that she was jealous. Jealous of Cam? How depressing!

  ‘I’m going to be a pilot one day,’ he said, as if to explain his expertise in the game.

  ‘Oh, that will be wonderful,’ Maxine said, very deliberately. ‘You’ll be able to deliver the carryouts so much quicker. Not so much takeaways ... as flyaways.’ She began to giggle.

  Her silly remark shot home. He missed an important shot and the Mighty Zola emerged triumphant on the screen. Maxine felt suddenly sick. What a horrible, nasty thing to say! She wanted to apologise, but couldn’t find the words.

  Cam turned on her. ‘Goodness, that
sounds like something your brother would have said. He hasn’t disappeared at all. You’ve just taken over from him.’

  All her regret disappeared in a flash. Apologise to him? He could be as cruel as she any day. She hated him! She hated everybody! He strode from the machine and she called after him, ‘Away with you back to Hong Kong where you belong!’

  That remark didn’t bother him a bit. He turned back to her for a second, shaking his head. ‘Don’t be stupid, Maxine. I was born two streets away from you.’

  And with that he was off, whistling. He had won. Not only against the Mighty Zola, but also against her.

  The day did not improve. She couldn’t beat Cam’s score, no matter how she tried. She couldn’t concentrate, and her resentment just kept building up. She ate a hot dog for lunch, standing with all the other truants behind the disused Portakabins in town. Then she spent the afternoon on one of the creaky old swings in a playground.

  It was here that Father Matthew found her. ‘Maxine Moody? I thought that was you.’

  She almost fell off the swing at the sound of his voice. ‘On your way home from school?’

  She realised with relief that it was just about time for school to come out. She nodded silently.

  He looked around the deserted playground. ‘Do you come here to think?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You come to church sometimes for the same thing. I disturbed you that last time. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’ He waited. He wanted Maxine to talk to him. To confide in him.

  ‘I’ll have to go.’ Maxine was already on her feet, moving away from him. ‘Mum and Dad worry when I’m late.’ Always the same feeble excuse.

  He called after her, ‘Maxine, if you ever want to talk, that’s what I’m here for. Remember that, won’t you?’

  Yes, sure, she thought as she raced from the playground. Everyone wanted her to talk to them. Trouble was, no one ever wanted to listen.

  She almost didn’t go home. When she turned the corner into her street, there was a police car outside her house.

  They knew!

  Miss Ross or one of the other teachers (they were all the same!) had told on her again. This time, her parents had had enough of her. They were putting her away. Her father had once told her, in a temper, that ‘next time’ he would have her taken into care. She was ‘beyond parental control’. There had been many ‘next times’ since then. Maybe today had been the last straw. She drew herself up to her full height and set her shoulders straight. Face the music, kiddo, she told herself. Maybe in a home someone will care what happens to you.

  In fact, her parents weren’t interested in whether she’d been to school or not. They had something – someone – more important on their minds.

  Derek.

  As she came in the door, her father approached her.

  ‘You’re going to stay with Mrs Templeton for a few days, Maxine.’ Mrs Templeton. Handy neighbour to have when you wanted to be rid of an unwanted daughter.

  She looked past her father to where her mother sat in the armchair in the living room. She was crying, being comforted by a policewoman kneeling in front of her.

  ‘Why?’ Maxine asked. ‘Where are you going? What’s wrong?’

  Why can’t all three of us go together? she wanted to ask. Share whatever it is.

  ‘Your mother and I are going to London.’ Suddenly he gripped her by the shoulders and bent down so his eyes, dark and flecked with green like her own, were level with hers. There were tears in them. Held back, but there, trying not to brim over. ‘We have to be very strong, Maxine. So I’m going to tell you. The police have found a body.’

  His voice broke at that point, and he had to repeat it. ‘... a body. They think it might be Derek. They think it probably is. I have to go ... and identify ...’ His voice broke again. The tears almost did brim over and he had to swallow them back. ‘I just want you to prepare yourself, but we think Derek is dead.’

  c

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Had it really been two months since that awful day? Two months when all she’d felt was guilt and pain and remorse. She had wished her brother dead, and then suddenly he was. She spent a lot of her time during those months in church, lighting enough candles to illuminate Blackpool. Father Matthew would approach her. She knew he wanted to offer words of comfort to her, let her pour out her heart to him. Now, more than ever, she needed someone to talk to. But not him.

  Not a priest.

  She couldn’t lie to a priest. And there was a feeling in her worse than all the guilt and all the remorse. One she could never confess to anyone.

  Relief.

  She tried not to feel it. Tried to push it down, deep into her soul, whenever it surfaced. But it wouldn’t stay down for long, like a cork bobbing to the surface of a river.

  Relief.

  Derek was dead. Maybe now they would have time for her. Maybe now Derek would be put in the past – where he belonged! They would realise Maxine was here. Alive. With them.

  She tried so hard to be good in those weeks after the funeral. A dutiful daughter, comforting her grieving mother.

  And how she grieved. If she had cried when Derek had disappeared, she sobbed bitterly now. The funeral itself had been a nightmare, an ordeal Maxine just wanted to forget. Her mother almost collapsing; her father having to help her, sobbing, from the church.

  ‘Is Mum going to be all right, Dad?’ she had asked him many times.

  He had cried too. Silently. Tears would run down his face as he stood making dinner for them, or as he sat pretending to read the evening paper.

  ‘Of course she will,’ he had assured her, pulling her close to him. It had been so long since he’d held her like that, and the relief burst onto the surface again.

  Derek was dead. And she was glad!

  ‘We have to let her cry,’ he would say. ‘It’s best to grieve, Maxine. The funeral was the time for her to let Derek rest. To close the door. He’ll never be away from us, of course, but now he’s in another room. Your mother will accept that eventually, and then, soon, we’ll all begin to live again.’

  They would begin to live again. She had never felt so happy as she did that night, or so guilty.

  She was wicked. There was no other word for someone who could feel like this. But when she felt her dad’s arms around her, heard him say they would ‘begin to live again’, she didn’t care.

  She even wrote it down and kept the note under her pillow.

  But when would they begin to live again?

  As the weeks dragged by, nothing changed. If anything, things got worse.

  ‘You’ve got to give your mother time,’ Miss Ross told her. ‘It’s a hard thing to accept. Death.’

  ‘But Dad said ...’ She didn’t have to continue. She had told Miss Ross so often, she knew what she was going to say.

  ‘Think how hard it must be for him. You all prayed for Derek to come back.’

  Maxine turned away, sure it must show on her face that she hadn’t.

  ‘And suddenly,’ Miss Ross went on, ‘to discover that he’d been dead for months.’

  That had hurt them. Maxine knew that. All the weeks and months they had hoped for him to walk in the door, he had been dead. Lying for all those months in a burnt-out building that squatters and the homeless used.

  ‘Give them time, Maxine.’

  But it seemed all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough for her mother.

  Maxine came home from school one day to find the house a hive of activity. Mum was polishing the front room, Dad was arranging chairs around a table. His face was drawn, and he looked up at Maxine with sad eyes.

  ‘Are we having visitors?’ she asked.

  For a moment her hopes rose. Visitors were something they never had now. Visitors would mean a return to normal l
iving. Back to what they once were. ‘Are we, Mum? Are we having visitors?’

  Her mum’s face glowed. Her eyes were bright. Maxine hadn’t seen her like that for so long. Yet it didn’t look right somehow.

  ‘No one who would interest you, Maxine. In fact, perhaps you could go out with your friends tonight.’

  Now she wanted rid of her? Why?

  ‘Who’s coming?’ she insisted.

  It was her father who answered her. ‘We’re having a fortune teller, Maxine.’

  Mum slammed the polish down on the table. ‘I told you before. She’s not a fortune teller. She’s a medium.’ She turned to Maxine. ‘I’m having a seance, dear.’ Her tone defied Maxine to disapprove.

  ‘But ... why ...?’

  ‘Exactly!’ her father snapped. ‘Why? It’s a crazy idea. Why can’t you put it all in the past, Gill?’

  ‘I can’t do it as easily as you can, obviously.’

  ‘There is no point to this! Derek is dead!’

  Her mother put her hands over her ears. ‘Shut up! I won’t hear you say that.’

  Maxine began to back out. They had forgotten she was there. Derek was dead, but his memory still filled their lives, leaving no room for her.

  She lay on the bed listening to their voices downstairs, still arguing. Nothing was going to change. Nothing was ever going to change.

  She must have dozed off, drifting into an uneasy sleep, dreaming she was playing and running and chasing someone. Her laughter, her giggles suddenly turned to anger. She pushed hard and whoever she was chasing, fell. And as they fell, their arms flailing wildly, the face all at once became clear. Derek! She could never see him when awake or remember his features. Yet here, in her nightmare, she saw him clearly. His eyes accused her as he tumbled down, reaching out for her hand. And try as she might, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t lift a finger to help him.