The New Girl (3 page)

FOUR

As they turned into the corridor, Josh looked at her.

“Sorry,” he said a little awkwardly. “I didn't mean to be rude.”

So you're talking to me now?
Lila thought, turning her phone on. She wasn't prepared to forgive him quite yet.

“Friends?” he said.

“Don't push it,” Lila muttered.

“Acquaintances, then.”

“I can do acquaintances,” Lila conceded after a moment. She allowed herself to smile at him. When he smiled back, it transformed his face.

“So,” he said. He sounded nervous. “As an acquaintance, can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

He scratched his ear. “Can I—”

Buzz
.

They both looked at Lila's pocket. Josh looked annoyed by the interruption.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

CANT LIVE WITHOUT U CALL ME BABY PLEEEEEZ xxx

“They confiscate those,” Josh said.

“Tell me something I don't know,” Lila said irritably.

“Lila!”

Ollie was skidding down the corridor towards her. She was relieved to see a friendly face.

“How was history?” Ollie glanced at Josh. “Between them, Josh and Ms Andrews probably bored you to death. Give this guy a chance and he'll tell you everything about Hitler right down to the size of his socks.”

“At least I can talk about something other than football,” said Josh mildly.

Buzz. Buzz
.

“They confiscate phones around here,” said Ollie.

“I
know
,” Lila sighed.

More kids joined them as they funnelled towards the maths block. With relief, Lila saw Polly's blue-black hair in the scrum, but the sight of Eve's red mane as well made her uneasy again.

Buzz
. Santiago couldn't keep doing this. It wasn't fair.

 

Lila wasn't sure how it happened. One minute she was upright. The next, for the second time in as many hours, she was lying flat on her back among a sea of surprised faces with her belongings scattered everywhere.

When would her life stop being such a farce?

She suddenly glimpsed Eve's face in the crowd. It was triumphant. Now she thought about it, she had felt something trip her up. She glared at Eve, but didn't say anything. She wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

Ollie and Polly's faces loomed over her.

“Are you OK?” asked Polly in concern.

“I tripped over my shoelace,” she said shortly.

“You have to stop falling at my feet like this,” Ollie quipped. “People will talk.”

She couldn't help but feel a little better looking into his smiling eyes. He helped her to pick up her books, which had scattered halfway down the corridor. Polly picked up the stuff which had rolled in the opposite direction. Lila looked around the gathered crowd, but Josh had vanished.

“Josh hates drama,” Ollie said, noticing the way Lila was looking around. “You won't see him again today. No loss. ‘At least I can talk about something other than football.' Right! Roll up for conversations on the most boring subjects in the universe!”

“It's OK, Ollie,” said Polly, returning with several biros and Lila's calculator. “We all know you're threatened by Josh's intellect.”

“Hey!” Ollie protested.

Polly shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? The brain shop was all sold out when it was your turn.”

Lila giggled at the look on Ollie's face. It felt really good to laugh again.

“It takes brains to play football too, you know,” Ollie insisted. “But you don't hear me going around boring everyone about that, do you?”

Lila and Polly both raised their eyebrows.

“I seem to remember something earlier today, about a match where you thrashed the other side,” said Lila. “Seven nil, wasn't it? ‘Of course, it's a team game, but I scored most of the goals. . .'”

“OK, bad comparison,” Ollie admitted. “But you know what I mean. Josh Taylor's a pompous idiot.”

“And you're certainly not pompous, Ollie,” said Polly innocently.

“Exactly,” said Ollie, failing to pick up on Polly's sarcasm.

Polly grinned at Lila. Lila grinned back, sharing the joke. Suddenly she felt like maybe she could survive at Heartside after all.

Her phone had landed near Ollie's feet. He picked it up. Like it was happening in slow motion, Lila saw him take in all the texts from Santiago.

“Whoa,” said Ollie. “These are, uh . . . pretty gushy.”

Lila's face was burning up all over again. Ollie was going to think she had a permanently red complexion. “My ex,” she said, snatching the phone from his hand.

Ollie's expression was a mixture of surprise and curiosity. “How ‘ex' are we talking?”

“Very.”

Polly was looking interested now. “Same person who was texting you earlier?”

Lila prayed that Ollie and Polly would lose interest in this line of conversation, and fast. But there was no chance of that.

“The guy still sounds pretty keen,” Ollie said.

“Was it someone in London?” Polly asked.

“Do you mind if we don't talk about this?” Lila begged. “I can't take much more drama today.”

Ollie gave a slow smile. Lila had a flashback to the way he had looked when he pinned her against Mr Morrison's door at the start of her whole disastrous day. It already felt a lifetime ago.

“You're a mystery, Lila Murray,” he said. “I like mysteries.”

“As long as they aren't too complicated,” Polly quipped. “See you in there, guys.”

Lila spotted Rhi approaching Eve by the maths classroom door as Ollie handed her the last stray book that had fallen from her bag.

“Time to get out of here,” she muttered. She looped her arm quickly through Ollie's.

“Fine by me,” he said, looking pleased.

As she towed him into the classroom, Lila risked a glance at Eve and Rhi. Eve's face was thunderous at the sight of Ollie and Lila arm in arm.

Suddenly, Rhi frowned at her in sudden recognition. Leaning towards Eve, Rhi whispered something in her best friend's ear. Lila swallowed. Now Rhi had figured out who Lila was, what kind of ammunition was she giving Eve to use against her? She had plenty, Lila knew that much. She wasn't proud of the way she had treated Rhi. She'd been a different person back then. But how could Rhi know that?

Leaving the past behind was going to be much harder than she'd thought. When would the shadow of Lil go away? And with the way she'd just flaunted Ollie in front of Eve, she hadn't exactly done herself any favours.

FIVE

As the bell finally went for the end of the day, Lila struggled to pack away her books, get out of her seat and leave the IT suite. She dragged her feet down the corridor, hoping she wouldn't bump into Eve or Rhi on her way out.

At lunch she had sat with Polly. Although she smiled at the kids she recognized from her morning classes, everyone scurried past the table without even acknowledging her. She guessed Eve had made her feelings clear to the entire year. She could practically hear the Ice Queen's drawling voice in her head, warning everyone off the new girl. Only halfway through day one, and she was already a pariah. Even Polly's company couldn't change that. She hadn't seen Ollie again all day.

Josh had sat a couple of tables away with an apple and a well-thumbed book. He didn't look in her direction once. Not even to ask if she was OK after her fall in the corridor.

Clearly he didn't actually want to be friends
, she thought crossly. Ollie's description of Josh as a pompous idiot was right.

A pair of goggles had hidden Eve's steel-grey eyes for most of science that afternoon, but Lila had still felt her cold gaze boring through her shoulder blades. IT hadn't been much better. She now had a blinding headache and her new school shoes were rubbing her heels. And on top of everything else, she dreaded what she would find when she turned on her phone again after school. She couldn't wait to get out of here and hide in her bedroom for a while.

She gloomily spun the combination lock on her locker. Part of her was bracing herself for a box of eggs or something to come tumbling out.
Even someone as all-powerful as Eve Somerstown can't open locked doors,
she reminded herself. Still, she flinched as something fluttered out and drifted to her feet.

Bending down, she picked up the piece of paper and smoothed it out. Someone had stuffed it through the vent on the front of her locker. She stared at the words.

Take heart. First impressions are misleading.
You're a cool person with a clever head. Things will get better.

She studied the writing curiously, then turned the note over. There was no signature.

A funny warm feeling spread through her belly. Someone had bothered to write this for her. Someone knew how she was feeling. How was that possible?

She looked up and down the corridor. Other Year Tens were moving around the lockers, talking and joking. None of them were looking at her, or at the note in her hand.

She stared again at the writing. It was the nicest thing that had happened all day. In one swoop, she didn't feel alone any more.

“Ready to go?”

Polly was standing by her locker, clutching her bag to her chest. Lila saw that she'd put her zigzag earrings back on.

“Did you write this?” She waved the note. It seemed like something Polly might do.

“Nothing to do with me.” Polly took the note from Lila's fingers and read it. “That's really cute!” she said with pleasure. “He's right, you know. Things will get better.”

Lila snatched the note back. “How do you know it's a he?”

“I don't,” said Polly gleefully. “But it's a safe guess. After the day you just had, it looks like you've got a secret admirer!”

Lila studied the note again. A secret admirer? Was this some sort of practical joke?

She gripped Polly's arm. “Swear to me that this isn't a wind-up.”

“I swear!”

“Then it's some kind of weird Heartside Valentine's Day tradition,” Lila said suspiciously. “You take Valentine's Day pretty seriously in this town.”

“We do parades, not mystery notes. Stop looking so worried. It's exciting! Maybe it's a really hot guy who saw you in the canteen and couldn't bring himself to talk to you.”

Lila felt a little thrill at the thought of this mystery guy.

Her mood was abruptly punctured by the sight of Eve heading towards the lockers, flanked by Rhi and two other girls.

“Let's get out of here before the queen bee ruins your buzz,” said Polly. “Do you want a tour of your new town?”

Lila thought of her half-unpacked bedroom. Heartside Bay was her home now – it would be good to explore it a little. And with Polly for company, a tour could be nice.

“Sure,” she said with a grateful smile.

They headed out into weak sunlight and a stiff breeze blowing in from the sea. Kids withdrew as Lila and Polly walked down the steps, and whispered together in groups. Lila's stomach clenched again.

“You would tell me if I smelled, wouldn't you?” she muttered.

Polly sighed. “Eve's word is law around here. Ignore them. I'll take you to the beach to take your mind off things. I often go to the sea when I'm feeling down. It's really soothing.”

The walk to the beach took Lila's mind off her problems. The houses by the sea were all different sizes and shapes, with several old fisherman's cottages that had been turned into boutique bed and breakfasts and cute holiday cottages for couples who came to Heartside Bay to get married and enjoy themselves in Britain's most romantic town.

“The Old Town is cute,” Polly said, noticing Lila's gaze, “but no one really lives here full time. It can flood during bad winter storms. You live up by the cliffs, right?”

“How did you know?” said Lila in surprise.

Polly shrugged. “Everyone lives up here. Let's take these steps. They go down to the beach.”

Seaside towns in winter felt a little sad, Lila thought. Even tourist traps like Heartside Bay had a February melancholy about them. It matched her mood. Most of the ice-cream parlours and arcades along the front were closed for the winter. The pier was shuttered up as well. The Grand Hotel loomed over everything, its Regency walls and windows as pink and white as a frosted cupcake.

Lila's eyes were drawn to the fine white sand stretching out into the grey sea, gently ruffled by the outgoing tide. Gulls wheeled overhead in the chilly air.

“Welcome to Bottom Bay,” Polly joked.

Lila laughed. “You think it looks like a bum too? I felt bad for thinking that!”

“You have to be blind not to see the similarity,” Polly grinned.

Lila noticed someone perched on a wall by the foot of the pier. Josh Taylor's chestnut-coloured head was bent over a sketchbook, his chin tucked into a scarf that he wore tightly wound round his neck to keep out the cold. He was alone.

“Doesn't that guy ever stop drawing?” she asked a little waspishly.

Polly followed Lila's gaze. “Josh Taylor is our local mystery. He's perfectly nice, and clever too, as you've probably figured out. But he's really private. No one knows much about him. He lives with his grandfather somewhere in the Old Town. He's always down here by himself, sketching.”

Lila felt a reluctant glimmer of kinship with Josh Taylor. It sounded like he was as much of an outsider as she was.

“I thought you said no one lived in the Old Town,” she said.

“That's typical of Josh. Doing stuff no one else does.”

Lila remembered Ollie's remarks in the corridor earlier. “Ollie thinks he's pompous.”

“Don't take anything Ollie says too seriously,” said Polly. “Now I'm going to show you something to cheer you up.”

She pointed out of the curving harbour, to a tiny island. Lila stared at it.

“What's so special about a lump of rock?” she asked curiously.

“That lump of rock is called Kissing Island. You can only walk to it when the tides are just right. It's Heartside legend that if you kiss your true love on Kissing Island at midnight of a full moon, you will be together for ever.”

How romantic
, Lila thought, jolted out of herself.

She had loved Santiago, or thought she had, but he had never felt like a
true
love – not like the kind that Polly was describing. She gazed at the little island with fresh eyes, and imagined a full moon, the light shining on the sea, and a gorgeous guy's lips coming in for the ultimate kiss. Ollie's, maybe. She put her hand into her pocket, feeling the mystery note lying snuggled up against the lining.

“Imagine,” Polly sighed.

“I am,” Lila sighed back.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the winter clouds overhead. The ray of light caught the white sand of the beach, making the grains sparkle and shine beneath Lila's feet, and the waves looked bright blue instead of grey. In that moment, Heartside Bay felt like the most beautiful, romantic place in the entire world, a place where anything could happen. Lila held her breath, not wanting to break the spell.

Then the sun went in again and everything returned to normal. Lila sighed and shivered a little inside her blazer. The wind coming off the sea was cold. Feeling in her pocket for her phone, she turned it on. Ten texts and two missed calls from Santiago. She couldn't face reading the texts.

“Do you want to come back to my house?” she asked, shoving her phone back into her pocket. “Hang out for a bit? When I say ‘hang out', by the way, I basically mean ‘help me unpack'.”

Polly beamed. “I'd love to.”

“We have to find it first,” Lila warned jokingly. “I
think
it's that way.”

They headed away from the beach and towards the cliff road. Polly chatted beside Lila as they walked, and the journey – which had felt like miles that morning – went by in a flash.

“This is it,” said Lila, stopping outside the white gate of her house. “No one will be in yet – Mum and Dad are both still at work. But I have a key, and. . .”

Her voice trailed away.

The front door was wide open.