Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth Read Free Book Online Page A

still full of sandwich. “Mine fuckin’ is.” Her face curdled into a grimace before she went back to her chewing.
    Samantha gave the first genuine laugh she had uttered all day. “She’s a bitch, all right,” she agreed, then paused. “And a whore,” she added, staring at Corrine with a smile.
    Debbie gave up on her half-eaten sandwich. Her fingers crumpled it into the foil.
    “So’s mine,” Corrine said matter-of-factly. “She nicked all the cash I earned at the guesthouse this summer and it still weren’t enough for her, fuckin’ old slag. Still, I showed her, din’t I, Debs?” She twirled a finger through the permed and highlighted hair that had been worth the black eye she’d managed to disguise by copying the colours of Madonna’s make-up.
    Debbie tried to give her friend a look that would tell her to shut up, but Corrine was well away. “So what did your mum do?” she asked.
    “Got herself a boyfriend,” Samantha offered her lunchbox again, the mint Club biscuit she had intended on keeping for herself the only thing left in it.
    “Really?” said Corrine, accepting the bait, remembering the motley collection of boyfriends she’d put up with in her time. “What is he, a druggie? A biker?”
    “He’s a brickie,” Samantha scowled, “and he’s only four years older than we are.”
    “Yep,” Corrine nodded her head, “she’s a slag all right, your mum.”
    The pair of them dissolved into laughter.
    Debbie felt something crawl inside her stomach. This was worse than she’d anticipated.
    “Right!” she said, snapping shut the lid on her lunchbox. “Who’s coming outside? I in’t sitting here all lunchtime, this weather.”
    “OK.” Samantha shrugged and turned her head slowly towards Debbie, her eyes running up and down her. “We’ll catch you up, then.”
    Corrine, who had been poised to jump down from her desk, checked herself just in time.
    “I don’t feel like going out,” Samantha explained to her. “Do you?” She smiled at Corrine, saying something with her eyes that Corrine thought she understood.
    “Uh, no,” Corrine sat back down. “I’ll stay here with you.” She flicked a glance round to the back of the class, to where Reeder, Rowlands and Smollet were sat in their usual huddle, talking bollocks and throwing paper pellets around the room. Smollet averted his gaze quickly and Corrine saw a flush of red travel up his neck.
    She turned back and winked conspiratorially. “I’ll protect you.”
    * * *
    Debbie fixed her eyes on the poster on Alex’s wall. With her donkey jacket spread face down on the floor in front of her, she began to sketch an outline in tailor’s chalk. A dark pulse of music filled the room.
    Lounging on his single bed with his back to the wall, sketchpad balanced on his knee, Alex watched her work, peering up at the icon she was copying. A new poster from his summer travels, the concert promotions that mapped the trails he had taken around the country. Not an inch of his bedroom wasn’t decorated. Magazine photos peered out around The Damned at the Electric Ballroom, UK Decay at the Lyceum and his oldest, most treasured remnant, The Sex Pistols at West Runton Pavilion. The black sunglasses of The Ramones, the quiffs and curls of The Cramps, The Clash standing down an alleyway. Arranged around them were his own sketches, friends captured in moments when their minds were elsewhere. Alex was always trying to nail the essence of a character with his pencil. Like the earnest frown on Debbie’s forehead just now.
    “How’s school today?” he asked her. “D’you go in the art room?”
    Debbie paused, the chalk hovering over the fabric. “Yeah,” she said, “at lunchtime.”
    She had fled there when Corrine had stayed behind with the new girl, found Darren and Julian and distracted herself with their company until the dreaded bell had summoned her back to the afternoon’s chores of showing Samantha Lamb to her classes.
    “Only,” she put