The Returners by Gemma Malley Read Free Book Online

will make them clean, then you may as well give up on everything.
    I’m looking in the mirror again. I’m not vain, don’t get me wrong. More interested. My face has changed. Is changing. Gradually, but I only noticed a few weeks ago so it’s come as a bit of a shock. My cheeks are hollowing. I don’t look so much like a kid any more. I look older. I look weary. Fifteen-year-olds aren’t meant to look weary, are they?
    I squint at my reflection; I don’t know if I like what I see. What do other people see? I try to look at myself objectively. Dark hair. Longish. Straggly. Dad wants me to cut it but I keep avoiding the barbers. I like it long. Curly too. Not corkscrew curls, just a wave. I like to think I’ve got natural surfer hair.
    Actually, that’s something Claire once said. She told me my hair suited me – that I shouldn’t cut it off because it softened my face. She said my hair was a clue to who I really was. I remember asking how she knew who I really was, and she said that she saw me sometimes, the real me, hidden under all these layers. She said I wasn’t that tough underneath. Naturally, I punched her. Not hard, just in protest.
    I scrutinise my appearance. Does my face need softening? I narrow my eyes in concentration. I’ve got blue eyes. Cold blue. Cold blue’s intimidating. It can be useful having intimidating eyes, though. I’ve got quite a square jaw too. That’s good, right?
    I turn my face to consider my profile. I notice someone looking up at my reflection and I swing round, startled, embarrassed.
    It’s Yan’s brother. He’s slumped against the wall. He looks like he’s got a broken nose. There’s blood all over his face.
    I don’t know how long he’s been there. Didn’t hear him come in. Has he been watching me all this time? ‘Here. Clean yourself up.’ I throw him a paper towel and he dabs uselessly at his nose. ‘What happened?’
    He shakes his head. ‘Nothing. Nothing happened.’
    Yan’s brother is in Year Eight. He’s got none of Yan’s easy confidence, none of his footballing skills. He’s a bit overweight, which doesn’t help, and he gets nervous when he’s talking in front of lots of people, even people he knows.
    He hangs out with the oddballs in his year. The geek squad, they call them. That could explain the bleeding nose – someone probably punched him. There’s a few in every year. The misfits – the ones who are too clever, or too stupid, or just plain weird. He falls into the last category. I guess it’s because he’s foreign.
    ‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’ I pass him another wet towel. With his face cleaned up a bit you can see his nose isn’t broken, just covered in blood and snot. His eyes look up at me, nervous, afraid.
    ‘You need to watch yourself,’ I say. ‘Your brother’s in enough trouble as it is.’
    He nods silently.
    ‘You’re sure you don’t want to say who did this to you?’ I ask. I can’t help the guy if he won’t tell me who punched the living daylights out of him.
    He shakes his head again.
    ‘Suit yourself.’
    The door bangs behind him. I move to leave the bathroom but images of Yan, of Mr Best, of the freak woman, come into my mind and I feel light-headed suddenly. I hold on to the basin, steadying myself. My head hurts. I breathe in and out slowly. I tell myself to stop thinking about Yan. Like Dad said last night when I asked him about my statement, I need to leave the police work to the police and legal stuff to the lawyers. They’re trained. They know what they’re doing. I’ve done my bit.
    I realise I didn’t get any lunch money off Dad. I’m starving – my lack of breakfast is starting to look like a pretty stupid idea. I’m feeling nauseous again. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I put my hand in my pocket hopefully – maybe I left a quid in there last week. Unlikely but you never know. My hand alights upon a piece of paper. A receipt? Some useless note? I pull it out and my eyes light