Bad Company by Cathy MacPhail Read Free Book Online

collage is only a material thing, isn’t it?’
    She was right, material things aren’t important. I opened the scissors, but I still couldn’t bring myself to make that first cut .
    Diane was getting mad at me by this time. ‘Goodness, Lissa. If you don’t hurry up the cleaners will be on this floor.’ She tutted in annoyance. She would never be this indecisive. Not Diane. I was letting her down .
    ‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘Just don’t come running to me moaning about Ralph Aird and how he made a fool of you, and how he humiliated you. It seems to me you’d let Ralph Aird walk all over you and you wouldn’t do anything about it. Maybe you’re more like your father than you like to think.’
    But I wasn’t like J.B. I wanted to shout that out to her. ‘If Ralph Aird was in your shoes, I bet he wouldn’t be holding back.’
    And he wouldn’t. Not Ralph Aird. He’d be destroying everything with whoops of delight. That, I suppose, decided me .
    I snapped the scissors shut and cut Harry Potter in two .
    As Diane hurried to the class door to keep watch, I heard her sigh with satisfaction. ‘Thatta girl, Lissa.’
    That first cut was the hardest. After that I snapped and slashed in a growing frenzy of anger. So much for Ralph Aird, and the way he’d made a fool of J.B. … Oliver Twist’s head shot to the floor. So much for Murdo, and how he’d lost all faith in me … Moby Dick dangled from the banner like a broken concertina. So much for J.B. and all his lies … Fagin was sliced into ribbons. So much for everybody! Scheherazade and Huckleberry Finn were snipped and shredded like so much confetti .
    So much for them all .
    I was breathing hard by the time I’d finished and the classroom floor was littered with the tattered remnants of Ralph’s literary collage .
    I could feel beads of sweat running down my back and I was shaking .
    ‘Good work!’ Diane said, patting me on the back and pulling me from the class. ‘Now let’s get out of here before someone sees us.’
    I’m still shaking now. I can’t stop .
    What will I do if they ever find out it was me?
    How could I ever have done such a terrible thing! Yet, I remember at the time thinking it was the best thing I could do. I can remember the rush of excitement I felt when I’d finished. Am I really such a nasty person?
    I remember the fear too, the fear that someone would find out what I’d done. I didn’t want to go to school next day. If it hadn’t been for knowing that Diane would be there to support me, I don’t think I would have gone.
    She was waiting for me when I walked through the school gates next morning. She winked and whispered, ‘It’s all over the school. The cleaners found it this morning, and, know what? The vandals are getting the blame. Didn’t I tell you?’
    English was our first subject and as we filed in therewere gasps of horror from the rest of the class. Like coloured snow the shreds of the collage lay pathetically around the floor. They still hadn’t been cleaned up. I couldn’t see Ralph Aird at first. I didn’t even look, so sure that guilt was written all over my face.
    In the bright light of the morning what we had done seemed so much worse. The faces of the characters, lying askew all over the floor, jumped up at me accusingly. It seemed pathetic and sad. Murdo came striding into the room, slamming the door behind him. I have never seen him so angry. His wild hair stood on end as if he’d been pulling at it with his short stocky fingers.
    His voice echoed round the class like the desperate wail of a banshee. ‘How could anyone do such a cruel, senseless thing?’
    He knew it had been me. At that moment I was sure of it. I couldn’t meet his eyes and kept mine fastened on the desk in front of me. Trying hard not to listen to his words, finding that impossible.
    ‘What kind of people do things like this? To destroy something beautiful is bad enough. But we know all the hard work, the care, the time that has