This chapter is meant to be twice as long, but I wanted to update and I wasn't ready to write the next part yet, so I've split it in two for now. I might merge this with the next chapter later.

Friday

"Well, yesterday was the worst day off school ever," Floss commented at breakfast. "Ow!" she added, as Harry kicked her under the table. "What did you do that for?"

In reply, Harry pointed to Bailey, Carmen, Kazima and Johnny, none of them looking at all happy. Luckily, they hadn't been near enough to hear Floss, but Mo, usually easy-going, was giving her such a deadly glare that she shrank back.

"I hate this!" she whispered to Harry. "Everyone's so... gloomy."

"Of course they are!" Harry hissed, angrily. Floss glared back at Harry and Mo for a second, never one to back down, but luckily at that moment they were interrupted by Mike coming in. May-Li stood up and turned to him.

"Mike, do you think it's best if the kids stay off school today?" she asked. "Everyone's had a shock; I'm not sure if they'd be able to concentrate on school work today."

Mike shook his head. "I think it's best if everyone sticks to their normal routines today," he said. "It'll be a good distraction, for the younger kids anyway."

"No way," Johnny interrupted, fiercely. "I'm not going back till I know Tee's going to be all right."

"Fine, you can stay at home if you want," Mike said. "You're meant to be at survival camp anyway, so the school won't be expecting you. But as for the rest of you," He turned to everyone at high school. "I think Faith, Rick and Tyler should all go back to school too. I still need to speak to Bailey and Jody, but I can do that later, so it depends if you two are up to school or not."

He stopped, looking round. "Where is Jody?"

"I think she's still upstairs," Carmen told him. "I haven't seen her for ages." She was quite annoyed; she'd tried to speak to Jody the evening before, to find out how she'd been involved in everything, but Jody had always been with Rick or Tyler. It was like she was deliberately avoiding Carmen.

"Oh yeah, I saw her earlier," said May-Li. "She says she's not feeling well; I think she's still in shock. Maybe we should just let her stay home."

Mike nodded, then turned to Carmen, Kazima and Bailey. "What about you lot?" he asked. "Do you want to stay home, or go to school?"

They looked at each other; then Kazima said, "I think we'll all go to school."

"Are you sure?" Mike looked surprised.

"Uh, yeah," Carmen tried to convince him. "I think the distraction is best for all of us. I just can't face staying at home worrying about everything. Text me if there's any news from the hospital, though, yeah? And when Tee's ready for visitors."

Mike nodded, then sat down with the rest of them. Nobody was eating much, he noticed. He supposed he couldn't really blame them. In the end, he just decided to let everyone leave for school, though it was only eight o'clock. At the last moment, though, Carmen rushed upstairs, saying she'd forgotten her PE kit.

Carmen waited till she was out of everyone's sight, then headed for Jody's room. She stood in front of the door for a moment, then shoved it open.

Jody looked up from her bed; as soon as she saw Carmen, her expression changed to shock. She looked scared for a moment; then she came to her senses and stared at Carmen with a closed-off expression.

"What do you want?" she demanded, trying and failing to sound casual.

"Nothing, I - I just need to talk to you," Carmen said gently. "I was, um, worried about you."

"Worried?" Jody looked sceptical.

"Er, yeah." Carmen tried to sound friendly, not to alarm Jody. "You must have had quite a shock yesterday; I know I did, anyway."

"I'm okay." Jody, rather than relaxing, looked more defensive than ever. She was positively scowling now.

Carmen sighed; she'd tried to start off with easy questions, to gain Jody's trust and get her to talk, before asking her what she really wanted. It was the tactic all social workers seemed to use on care kids. Carmen should have known Jody wouldn't be fooled, though; she, like all care kids, had become experienced at evading awkward questions and hiding things from social workers. There was no way Carmen was going to trick her into giving anything away like that.

"Okay," she said, changing tactics. "What were you doing at school yesterday? Was it because of that email?"

"How do you know about the email?" Jody demanded; she wasn't even trying to hide her shock now. She actually did look ill suddenly; her face had gone pale and she suddenly looked scared.

Carmen ignored her. "Why did you give pass that note on to Tee on Monday?" she continued. "What else are you hiding?"

"Nothing!" Jody snapped. Then she looked scared again. "What else do you know?"

"What else? So there's more?"

"No!" Jody shut her mouth, as if worried she'd reveal more without realising it. "Look, just leave me alone, please."

"I just want to know what happened." Carmen said. "I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt Tee, not on purpose. Just tell me what happened to you."

"I already told Mike most of it," Jody said, trying to remember what she'd told him. "I got the email, but when I got to the school, Tee was already on the roof. And she just... fell."

"And what about Bailey?" asked Carmen. "Did you see him? Because he told me quite a different story. He said Tee didn't fall; she was pushed. And you've spoken to the person who did it."

Jody stared at Carmen. For a moment, she just looked dismayed, like she'd been really hoping that Carmen didn't know everything. Then, suddenly, she broke down.

"I didn't do anything, okay?" she yelled. "Bailey's lying! I don't know Thomas and Luke, I haven't done anything! Just leave me alone, please!"

She was sobbing now, hysterical. Carmen could tell Jody was in pieces; still, though, she had to say it.

"You know their names, though." She looked at Jody for a second, trying to figure out what was going on.

"What's going on, Jody?" she asked. "I know you, okay? And you're never scared. There's no way you'd let people like that push you around, or let them hurt your friend. Did they threaten you, or something? Is that what this is about?"

She looked into Jody's eyes; Jody flinched, still sobbing, and turned away.

"It's not that," she said. "It's worse... I can't tell you. Just leave it, okay?"

Carmen paused for a moment, wondering what to do. Jody was clearly scared; there must be a reason she was keeping quiet, and there was definitely something troubling her. Carmen was already late for school, though, and Jody was upset enough already.

"All right, I'll leave it, for now," she said. "But, Jody, if anything's wrong, you can tell me. I'm your friend."

"Thank you," Jody muttered.

"You should talk to someone, though," Carmen said. "If it's that bad. I know something's wrong, but if you won't tell, no-one can help you."

She looked at Jody again for a long moment. Then she turned round and left, closing the door behind her.

As they'd left the house early, Carmen, Kazima and Bailey decided to walk to school, so they could talk things over on the way.

"There's something wrong with Jody," Carmen told the others. "I just know it. Bailey, what exactly happened yesterday?"

"Well," said Bailey, thinking back. "We all went to football practise, as usual, but the Coach was late for some reason. Everyone was really annoyed, after we'd come into school specially and all. Thomas and his mates started acting up, climbing about the scaffolding. Most of us got annoyed, and left them to it. I guess that's when they found Tee's tablet. Coach arrived soon after that, so we started practise. We noticed Thomas and the others weren't there, but we all just assumed they'd got bored and skived off, so we got on with practise.

"After everyone had left, I stayed back to ask the Coach about something. Then he went away to the car park, and I started to walk back through the playground. Next thing, Jody came running up, yelling about how Tee was in trouble and it was all her fault. She didn't say why, though; we were too busy running. Tee was already on the roof by that time, and you know the rest."

"Did Jody say anything to you afterwards?" asked Carmen.

Bailey shook his head. "I ran away pretty much straight after Tee fell. I figured that otherwise everyone would be asking questions, so I had to get away quick. I really don't know what was up with Jody."

Carmen sighed; they still weren't any closer to finding out what was up with Jody. "What do you think we should do?" she asked.

"Maybe we could talk to Tyler," Kazima suggested, thoughtfully. "He might be able to get through to Jody; he's her friend."

Carmen nodded. "That might work," she said. "Why don't you talk to him later."