THE OTHER BOY

Newton Denham, Hampshire

15th December 1999

Don’t go outside, they’d said, and she’d assured them they wouldn’t. Anyway, it was dark and she was afraid of the dark. Aaron wasn’t. He told her he wasn’t afraid of anything and she believed him. Aaron didn’t know how to be afraid.

The front door was open, just a little, enough for her to see the bonnet of their old grey car parked outside. Her breath caught up in her throat.

‘Aaron,’ she called. He didn’t answer. Her school pencil case was in her hand, torn pink plastic decorated with felt tip pen and unicorn stickers. Annette, a girl in her class had decorated hers with a big red heart with an arrow through it, her initials at the arrow end, and at the pointy end two different initials, RT, for Ryan Turner. Everyone loved Ryan Turner. And everyone loved Annette who was pretty, tall, and slim. Lacey had found a picture of a gazelle in a book she’d borrowed from the library and it had reminded her of Annette with its slender legs and long-lashed doe eyes. Annette had long brown hair that flicked up at the ends and hazel eyes, not dirty-fair hair and green eyes like Lacey’s. She hated it when people mentioned her eyes. Some of the kids at school called her “The Green-Eyed Monster”. It was because she loved Ryan and everyone knew about it, and they wouldn’t let it drop even though she tried very hard not to look at him in class or when he was in the playground, following Annette around like a little puppy.

Ryan loved Annette and it made Lacey want to cry. Sometimes she did cry. There were other times when Lacey felt a burning in her chest and when she watched them, wanted to hit Annette really hard; would have liked to knock her over in the playground and laugh at her as she fell onto the gravel. Hopefully it would make her pristine games kit all dirty and covered in muck and not so bright-white it made your eyes hurt to look at her. And the creases her mum had ironed into the sleeves would get roughed up. Her hands and knees would get grazed and she’d have tiny bits of stone stuck in the cuts in her hands, and they would sting so much her eyes would water. And maybe everyone would laugh at her like they laughed at Lacey when she got pushed over. She would have enjoyed it, everyone laughing at Annette instead of her. Maybe she could make it happen. It wouldn’t be so hard to give her a quick shove in the ribs during break time.

It didn’t matter what everyone thought, anyway. She was only a bit jealous, not enough for them to call her a green-eyed monster. Or worse things sometimes. Rude words that meant something else, like her dad used sometimes when he was talking about the neighbours because they’d ignored him in the street or he’d got thrown out of the pub or they’d said he was a waster. She hated it when the kids at school called her names. It made her angry. So very angry.