Izzy's River (2 page)

The smile faded from Izzy’s face. Back to normal.

No more sitting with Poppy and Maya and Emily. The smile came back, a bit twisted, just for a second. It seemed funny that she was actually going to miss
Emily
. They hadn’t got on at all at the start of the project, when Maya had suggested Izzy worked with her group. Emily had been really stroppy about it.

Her usual table was at the other side of the room, with Lara and Sophy, who were each other’s best friends. They were perfectly nice to Izzy, but all they did was giggle all the time, and draw pictures of horses. They were both pony-obsessed. The other day they’d asked Izzy, quite seriously, whether if she had to be a pony, she’d rather be a chestnut or a grey? Izzy had muttered grey, but she was thinking about those scary aliens with the oval eyes that were supposed to have landed in the desert in America somewhere. She’d rather have an alien than a pony. And she’d rather do anything than go back to sitting with Lara and Sophy again. Because they’d been working on their projects so much, she’d ended up sitting with Poppy and the others almost all the time over the last couple of weeks – it was just easier that way. But now she didn’t have an excuse for that any more. She’d have to go back to her old table, and smile at stupid ponies.

The excitement about their amazing success died away. Izzy grabbed a handful of paper scraps, squishing them together, and went to put them in the
recycling. That way she could sniff without anybody noticing.

“Are you missing the show again?” Poppy asked her sympathetically as she came back. “You looked really miserable for a minute!”

Izzy nodded. “It’s a let-down, isn’t it?” she whispered, wondering if her eyes were red. Ali and Lucy and Elspeth had told her she looked like a white rabbit once, the kind that had scarlet eyes. Izzy quite liked rabbits, but she knew they hadn’t meant it as a compliment.

“At least it’s swimming this afternoon,” Poppy pointed out. “That’ll cheer you up. Want to sit next to me on the coach?”

Izzy nodded gratefully. She did like swimming.

And then tomorrow morning, she’d be back in Ponyland…

TWO

Izzy climbed out of her dad’s truck slowly, and gave him a wave. For the first time in a fortnight, she wasn’t looking forward to going to school.

She trudged along the pavement, eyeing the playground through the railings. She could see Ali and Elspeth and Lucy squashed up on one of the benches, reading a magazine. Ali glanced up, and caught Izzy looking at them. She said something to the other two, and they all laughed meanly.

Izzy turned scarlet, and hurried in through the gate, and over to the other side of the playground. Now that she was back sitting with Lara and Sophy, Ali would start picking on her again, she knew. Their table was next to Lara and Sophy’s and those two wouldn’t stick up for her. They probably wouldn’t even notice, not unless Ali turned into a Shetland pony.

She could see Poppy, sitting on the grassy bank close to the door to the Juniors. She was watching butterflies, Izzy realised, after a minute of trying to work out why Poppy kept bobbing this way and that. Izzy wished she could go and sit with her, but the project was over now. Poppy wouldn’t want her. She hurried past with her head down, not noticing that Poppy waved. She went and sat on the steps, pulling a book out of her bag. She’d started making sure she always had a book in her bag after a couple of weeks in Year Four – the year when everything seemed to go wrong. It was the year her best friend Daisy moved house and had to go to a different school, and the year that Mum married her new boyfriend, and went from being not in the house, which was horrible, to not even in the country, which was disastrous.

It hadn’t taken Izzy long to work out that a book was a good disguise. Even if you didn’t actually want to read it, a book made you look as though you were doing something. Instead of standing around desperately wishing someone would talk to you. Or that you were brave enough to go and talk to them. If someone (probably Ali or Lucy) said something mean to you, you could hide behind a book if you were crying. And people tended to leave you alone if
they thought you were busy. Teachers on playground duty weren’t as likely to try and push her into a game. With a book, she could just melt into the background.

After a while, she actually started reading the books, too.

“Izzy, have I done something to make you mad with me?”

Izzy looked up, shocked. She had a book. She was sitting in an out of the way corner of the playground. No one was supposed to talk to her.

Poppy was standing in front of her looking anxious, with Emily and Maya hovering behind at the sort of distance where they could come and back her up, but they weren’t getting in the way.

“No! Of course not…” Izzy looked horrified. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, you walked straight past me this morning. And then you went back to sitting with Lara and Sophy, instead of with us.”

Izzy opened and shut her mouth a couple of times. She didn’t seem to be able to get words out. “But that’s what I thought you’d want…” she murmured at last, looking up at Poppy unhappily. “It isn’t our Fairtrade project any more. I was only sitting with
you for that – because Maya asked if I wanted to.”

“And you didn’t really?” Poppy asked sadly. “I know you asked Mr Finlay if you could work on your own. Didn’t you like being with us?”

“Of course I did!” Izzy almost shouted. How could Poppy think she hadn’t enjoyed it? “It was brilliant, but you and Emily and Maya are – I mean, you’re proper friends. I didn’t think I could keep hanging around with you now.”

Poppy sat down next to her on the little bit of wall. There wasn’t much room. “Has Emily been mean to you again?” she asked suspiciously, glancing over at Emily and Maya.

“Nope. She’s actually been really nice, the last few days.” Izzy tried not to sigh.

“So why don’t you want to be friends with us now?”

“B-but I do…” Izzy stammered. “I just didn’t think I could. You were only putting up with me.”

Poppy looked at her, and shook her head. “You’re such an idiot,” she said, but nicely. “It’s probably to do with your star sign. Were you born in September? Or the end of August?”

Izzy nodded slowly. “The first of September. How did you know that?”

Poppy shrugged, but there was a smug look on her
face, as she counted off her points on her fingers. “Very hard-working. Nervous about friendships, and not very confident. But very clever. You really had to be a Virgo.”

“I’m not sure I believe in all that stars stuff,” Izzy said apologetically, hoping Poppy wouldn’t mind. She just couldn’t pretend she believed in it.

Poppy shrugged. “I do and I don’t. Sometimes it works, but sometimes things don’t fit at all. Virgos aren’t really supposed to be great organisers, so that obviously doesn’t work.”

Izzy turned pink at the compliment, and Poppy hauled her up off the step. “Come on. Let’s all go and sit on the bank.” It was everyone’s favourite part of the playground, the grassy slope that ran around the edge of the main playground and up to the field that they used for PE.

“Do you think Mr Finlay will let me change places, and come and sit with you?” Izzy asked, rather shyly. She still wasn’t sure what Maya and Emily felt about her moving. She suspected it was Poppy’s idea.

“I shouldn’t think he’d mind,” Maya said, stretching her feet out in front of her, and sighing happily. It was sunny, for the first day in ages, and she wanted her legs to get brown. “Just warn me if any of the
teachers are coming. I don’t want a lecture on sun cream, it’s no way hot enough to burn.”

“Mr Finlay got all the parents telling him how fabulous he was after the fashion show – and he’s Mrs Angel’s favourite person now,” Emily pointed out. “He oughtn’t to complain! It would be totally unfair if he did!”

“I think we shouldn’t ask,” Poppy suggested. “Is he going to notice?”

“He might not, but I bet Miss Grace will.” Emily lay down on the grass. “She notices everything.”

Poppy sighed, rolling on to her stomach next to Maya. “I hadn’t thought of her. All right, we’ll have to ask properly then. We’ll do it after break. Mr Finlay’s always in a better mood when he’s had a cup of tea.”

Izzy sucked in a nervous breath, and Poppy looked up at her, squinting against the sun. “What’s the matter? He won’t mind, Izzy. He said we worked together really well.”

“It isn’t him,” Izzy muttered, staring at the grass as though she’d seen a legion of spiders marching through it. “It’s Ali. And Lucy and Elspeth. Coming this way.”

Poppy turned over and sat up in seconds, glaring.
Izzy had told them a bit about the way Ali had treated her, and even just Izzy’s face as she described the things they’d said to her had made Poppy furious. “If they so much as try to be mean to you, we’ll tell Mrs Angel. I mean it,” she added fiercely.

“It’s all right,” Izzy said, trying to sound firm. “I’m not scared of her.”

Maya was sitting up now too. “Aren’t you? I am.” She nudged Izzy. “She’s a slug. A big, slimy slug, with expensive hair clips.” She nodded encouragingly. “What is she?”

“A slug.” Izzy managed a small grin. “In sunglasses.”

“Mmm, let’s hope they get taken off her,” Emily said, looking at Ali’s pink sunglasses enviously. “There was a letter home, wasn’t there? We aren’t allowed them.”

Maya sighed. “Unless you’ve got medical reasons. Guess who’s got
fragile eyes
.”

Emily snorted. “She hasn’t! She’s got a mum she walks all over, that’s all. What do you want?” she snapped at Ali and the other two, who were now standing next to them. Ali was smiling sweetly.

“We just came to talk to Maya,” she purred. “Is that OK, Emily?”

Emily scowled, but she couldn’t really tell Ali she
wasn’t allowed to talk to Maya, however much she’d like to.

Maya was fidgeting on the grass, wishing that Ali would just say whatever mean thing it was she was going to say, and go.

“We came to say thank you.” Ali smiled in a sickly sort of way.

All four of the other girls stared up at her suspiciously.

“For the fashion show. It was your idea, wasn’t it, Maya?” Ali sat down next to Maya, still smiling.

Maya nodded, and tried hard not to edge away from Ali. She was known for her meanness, and she was remarkably good at saying horrible things with the sweetest smile, which made them seem even nastier.

“It was a brilliant idea. And you all organised it so well.” Ali smiled round at them all.

“Who does she think she is, the Queen?” Emily muttered to Izzy, and Izzy had to stifle a snort. Emily was right. Ali had that look of her gracious majesty, talking to her loyal subjects. She just needed a corgi, and a big flowery hat.

“We really loved the modelling,” Elspeth put in, smiling in exactly the same way Ali had.

“And the chance to meet your mum, Maya,” Lucy added. A sudden twitch ran through all the girls, as though someone had flicked a switch.

Izzy eyed Ali sideways. She’d gone a little bit pink, and it wasn’t just the sun. So that was what it was all about. That was why they were buttering Maya up.

“She’s so cool.” Ali’s smile went up several notches. “You’re so lucky having a pop star mum.”

“She isn’t really a pop star,” Maya muttered. “She doesn’t do much pop stuff any more.” She looked incredibly uncomfortable, and Izzy remembered her saying how much she hated people going on about her mum – it was why she’d moved schools to Park Road, because everyone at her posh girls’ school made such a fuss about it.

Ali shrugged. “She’s a star, anyway.”

“Yes, she is,” Maya said firmly. She sounded as though she thought Ali was leading up to some snide comment about her mum’s singing. But Ali just kept on smiling, while Maya and the others fidgeted uncomfortably.

How can she be so sure of herself
? Izzy wondered.
Can’t she see that we’re all wishing they’d go away and leave us alone
? But Ali didn’t seem to be able to think about herself like that. She
knew
everybody loved her. Or if
they didn’t, it was their loss.

Izzy watched her enviously. They must be the two most different people in the world. Still, she wouldn’t want to be a mean cow, so maybe she was better off the way she was.

“Oh, the bell!” Maya said gratefully, jumping up as it rang. “Er, I need the loo. See you in class.”

“Me too!” Emily muttered, and Izzy and Poppy agreed, hurrying off after Maya.

“What was all that about?” Emily muttered as they walked as fast as they possibly could without actually running down the corridor. Mrs Angel had spies.

“It’s happening all over again, just like my old school,” Maya said bitterly, shoving open the door of the girls’ loos.

“Excuse me? Are we sucking up to you, Miss daughter of a pop star?” Poppy elbowed Maya in the ribs. “Take that scowl off your face, you look like you’re sucking a lemon.”

Maya looked round at her in surprise, and then laughed. “OK. Sorry. I just really hate it…”

“That’s OK, we all hated Ali already anyway,” Izzy pointed out quietly. “It isn’t as if she’s changed. We’re just adding ‘totally two-faced’ to her description, that’s all. She’s a two-faced horrible slug.”

“Don’t underestimate her.” Emily shook her head. “At least three faces. Maybe even four.”

“I wish I knew how she does it.” Izzy glanced round them all, hoping she was going to be able to explain what she meant. “Couldn’t she see we all wanted her to get lost, but we weren’t rude enough to say it?”

Maya shrugged. “It’s because she’s got everyone scared. We all tiptoe round her because we think she’s about to explode into something horrible. I was waiting for the bomb to drop, and it never did.”

Izzy sighed. “I wish I could be just a tiny bit like her, though.”

The others stared at her, and Poppy put her head on one side, as though she was examining some weird creature she’d found under a rock.

“Just the nerve!” Izzy added. “Not the rest of her. She’s so brave.” She frowned. “No. Not brave. It’s that she just can’t see that anyone could possibly not want her to be their friend. Like if she offers, everyone’s going to jump at it.”

Poppy shrugged. “Most of our class probably would. Just because they’d be scared of what she might do if they said no.”