The Secret Place

And at least back when they were twelve they just put on their coats and went. This year, everyone gets ready for the Court like they’re getting ready for the Oscars. The Court is where you bring your bewildering new curves and walk and self so people can tell you what they’re worth, and you can’t risk the answer being Nothing zero nothing. You like so totally have to have your hair either straightened to death or else brushed into a careful tangle, and fake tan all over and an inch of foundation on your face and half a pack of smoky eyeshadow around each eye, and supersoft superskinny jeans and Uggs or Converse, because otherwise someone might actually be able to tell you apart from everyone else and obviously that would make you a total loser. Lenie and Jules and Holly are nowhere near that bad, but they still redo their blusher four times and check the mirror from twenty angles, while Becca fidgets springy-footed in the doorway, before they can actually leave. Becca doesn’t wear makeup to the Court because she hates makeup and because the idea of spending half an hour getting ready to sit on a wall in front of a doughnut shop makes her brain short out with stupid.

She goes because the others do. Why they want to is a total mystery to Becca. They always act like they’re having an amazing time, they’re louder and high-pitched, shoving each other and screaming with laughter at nothing. But Becca knows what they’re like when they’re happy, and that’s not it. Their faces on the way home afterwards look older and strained, smeared with the scraps of leftover expressions that were pressed on too hard and won’t lift away.

Today she’s even more electric than usual, checking the time on her phone every two minutes, shifting like the marble hurts her bones. Julia’s already said to her twice, ‘Jesus, will you settle down?’ Becca mutters, ‘Sorry,’ but a minute later she’s shifting again.

It’s because like two metres down from them on the fountain-edge are the Daleks. Becca hates everything about the Daleks, in detail. She hates them separately – the way Orla’s mouth hangs open, the way Gemma wiggles her bum when she walks, Alison’s poor-ickle-scared-baby look, the fact that Joanne exists – and as a unit. She hates them extra today because three of the Colm’s guys across the fountain have come over to sit with them, so the Daleks are even more everything than usual. Every time one of the guys says something, all four of them have to shriek with laughter and pretend they’re almost falling off the fountain so the guys will catch them. Alison keeps lolling her head right over to one side to look up at this blond guy, and sticking out the tip of her tongue between her teeth. She looks brain-damaged.

‘So,’ Julia is saying, ‘Jean-Michel points at me and Jodi and he’s all, “This is Candy Jinx. They just won the Irish X Factor!” Which was kind of smart, because since that doesn’t exist it’s not like the bouncers were going to know the actual winner, but not that smart, because I could’ve told him exactly where this was going to fucking go.’ Julia is trying out swearing. It still only sort of works. ‘And yeah, surprise, the bouncers are like, “OK, let’s hear them sing.”’

‘Uh-oh,’ Becca says. She’s trying to ignore the Daleks and concentrate on Julia. Julia’s stories are always good, even if you have to subtract ten or twenty per cent and Becca’s never completely sure she’s subtracting enough.

Julia’s eyebrow shoots up. ‘Thanks a bunch.’

Becca flinches. ‘No, I just meant-’

‘Chillax, Becs. I know I can’t sing for shit. That’s the whole point.’ Becca blushes, and goes for another handful of Skittles to hide the blush. ‘So I’m like, we’re so fucked, what are me and Jodi even supposed to sing? We both like Lady Gaga, but what are we going to do, say Candy Jinx’s first single is “Bad Romance”?’

Selena is laughing. The Colm’s guys are looking over.

‘Luckily, though, Florian is smarter than Jean-Michel. He goes, “Are you joking? They’re under contract. If they sing a note, we’ll all get our arses sued off.”’

Holly isn’t laughing. She looks like she hasn’t heard. Her head’s tucked sideways, listening to something else.

‘Hol?’ says Selena. ‘You OK?’

Holly nods backwards, at the Daleks.

Julia leaves the rest of her story for later. The four of them pretend to be fascinated by picking out exactly the right sweets from the packets, and listen.

‘He is,’ Joanne says, and nudges Orla’s leg with her foot.

Orla snickers and cringes her chin down between her shoulders.

‘Look at him. He’s so into you, it’s pathetic.’

‘He is not.’

‘OMG, he so is? He told Dara and Dara told me.’

‘No way does Andrew Moore like me. Dara was just messing.’

‘Um, excuse me?’ Joanne’s voice has an instant cold edge that sets Becca shifting on the fountain again. She hates being this scared of Joanne, but she can’t stop. ‘You think Dara’s going to make an idiot out of me? Hello, I don’t think so?’