Past Secrets. Cathy Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ I was bunking off,’ Ella grumbled. ‘I’ve history in ten minutes and I haven’t finished my bloody essay on the Civil War.’

      ‘Sorry, I did mine and I could have lent it to you so you could use some of my ideas,’ Amber apologised. She loved history and the words flowed effortlessly from her pen to the page. Although how she’d written her essay last night was largely a mystery, as she’d been consumed with excitement thinking about today.

      When she’d said goodbye to Ella, she broke into a run so as to race past the Summer Street Café in case of neighbours lurking within.

      A minute later, she was at the bus stop on Jasmine Row, just in time to catch the 10.05 bus into the city, and Karl.

      Karl. She whispered his name to herself as she gazed dreamily out of the windows on the top deck. Karl and Amber. Amber and Karl.

      It sounded just right, like they were destined to be together.

      Destiny had never been a concept Amber had held much faith in up to now. Just a few weeks away from her eighteenth birthday, and a month from the hated exams, she felt that she was in charge of her own life.

      So she’d only been half paying attention when Ella read their horoscopes that fateful Friday at lunch. Horoscopes were fun but hardly to be relied on. Mum always insisted that Amber was responsible for herself and that life should not be lived on the word of what some astrologer had dreamed up for that day.

      Mum was firm that Amber should never follow the crowd or do anything just because of someone else’s opinion or because ‘everyone else is doing it’. It was a lesson Amber had followed very well up to now.

      ‘Crap for Aries, as usual,’ muttered Ella, reading hers quickly. ‘“Rethink your options but don’t let your enthusiasm wane.” What does that mean? Why doesn’t it ever give us hints on what’s coming up in the maths paper? Now that would really be seeing the future.’

      They were eating lunch on the gym roof – strictly forbidden but the current cool spot for sixth years – plotting their weekend and how to fit exam study in around at least one trip to the shopping centre to flip through rails of clothes they couldn’t afford. All study and no play made you go mad, Ella insisted.

      ‘Yours is better. “Single Taureans are going to find love and passion. Expect sparks to fly this weekend.”’

      ‘Sparks at the football club disco?’ Amber roared with laughter at the very ridiculousness of this idea. It was the same big gang of people she’d known all her life and you couldn’t get excited about a bunch of guys you’d watched grow up. Where was the mystique or the romance of that?

      ‘Patrick?’

      ‘Too nice. He’d want to walk along with his hand in your jeans pocket and yours in his and discuss the engagement party. Gross.’

      ‘Greg’s cute.’

      ‘He called me Chubby Face once. No way.’ Growing three inches taller in the past year meant Amber had gone from being childishly plump to womanly and voluptuous. The addition of honeyed streaks in her rich brown hair meant that all the boys who’d previously talked to her like a clever younger sister suddenly sat up and took notice.

      This new power over guys was heady and Amber was still testing it, gently. But she wanted to go somewhere more exciting than the football club disco to do so. Somewhere, beyond the confines of Summer Street, the football club disco and St Ursula’s was Life with a capital L: pulsing, exciting, waiting for her.

      ‘You’re getting so choosy,’ said Ella. ‘You fancied Greg last year.’

      ‘That was last year.’

      ‘Should I get more highlights?’ asked Ella, pulling forward a bit of the long, streaky blonde hair that was almost mandatory in sixth year and examining it critically. ‘Your highlights look great but mine have gone all dull and yellowy.’

      ‘Use the special shampoo for blondes,’ said Amber.

      ‘It costs a fortune. I bet your mum buys it for you. Mine wouldn’t.’ Ella was indignant. Because there were only the two of them, Amber’s mum bought her everything she wanted, while Ella’s, with three older sons as well, could hardly do the same thing.

      ‘I’ll give you some of my shampoo,’ offered Amber. She knew how lucky she was and always shared any goodies with Ella. That’s what best friends were for. ‘Now, tomorrow night.’ The pewter eyes gleamed. ‘Not the football club disco, please.’

      ‘Well…’ Ella began. ‘We could try something different.’

      ‘…Something bad…’ Amber shivered deliciously. ‘Let’s try to get into a grown-up club. Come on, in a few months, we’ll have left school and we’ll be the only people in our class to have never done anything interesting, Ella. Everyone else has gone to clubs they’re not supposed to be able to get into, except us because we’re the sensible ones. I’m fed up being sensible.’

      Sensible was nice when you were thirteen and adored by all the teachers, but less so when you were nearly eighteen. The girls who never had their homework done and never got top marks in exams seemed to be having all the fun now, which seemed like an unequal division of spoils.

      ‘Me too,’ Ella breathed. ‘And I’ve just thought how we can do it.’

      Amber’s eyes glittered. ‘How?’

      This feeling of dissatisfaction had in fact been incubating for weeks. Fed up with studying for exams and stifled by the pressure-cooker atmosphere at school, they felt the need to do something wild and rebellious for the first time ever, but their options were limited.

      Most of their pocket money went on clothes or their mobile phone top-up cards, so they had little cash left over for wild behaviour.

      Smoking was considered cool by some of the older girls, who insisted that it kept them thin, but cigarettes were too expensive to be more than a rare treat. Alcohol was easily available, like hash and ecstasy, but Amber’s mother had a nose like an airport sniffer dog and could smell badness anywhere, so coming home drunk or stoned was hardly an option. Faye would have had a fit and grounded her for a month, not to mention being hurt by her daughter’s behaviour, which would, in turn, make Amber feel bad for failing her beloved mother.

      And that was the crux of the matter: their family unit was just two. Two people who adored each other, two people who’d gone through it all together, who protected each other from the world. But sometimes, that could be a burden too.

      At least Ella had three brothers who could share living up to their parents’ expectations: Amber had the weight of her mother’s hopes and dreams resting squarely on her shoulders alone. And unlike Ella’s parents, who seemed to understand that their kids eventually tested their wings and flew the nest, Faye Reid still seemed to think that she and Amber would be together for ever.

      ‘What’s the plan?’ Amber asked now. ‘Where are we going? Nowhere round here, surely? There’s nothing but boring pubs.’

      ‘Exactly. So forget about round here.’ Ella grinned excitedly. ‘Marco’s going into town to a club tomorrow night, and if we went with him, we could get in without being carded.’

      Marco was Ella’s middle brother СКАЧАТЬ