Chapter 2
She lived in the fourth house on the right side of May Crescent, a no through road lined by houses that were crap when they were new. Most were light plasterboard affairs, the type you could put a foot or a fist through without even trying, their paint peeling and windows boarded up because the tenants couldn't afford (or be bothered getting) new glass. Faded or downright dead lawn sat in most of their front yards, wild half-hearted attempts at an actual garden in others. The house next to Izzy's actually had a thriving rosebush pressing its way through the front fence, threatening her with pale pink flowers and angry thorns. She avoided those carefully.
Her new home was no different to any other on the street, standing square and stout with a rusted iron fence and yellow lawn that crackled and snapped underfoot. The front door jammed, then creaked and scraped its way inwards, bottom corner dragging across the worn floorboards. She stepped straight into the lounge room, their old TV flashing commercials across the room thought the couches were unoccupied. Doors to the two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom led off from the lounge; she headed straight for her own room, dumping her bag on the bed, and then to the kitchen to find something to eat.
Her mother was there, with what looked like sausages cooking on the stove. "Where've you been?" she asked as Izzy walked in, not even having to turn around to know who it was.
"School," Izzy answered, opening the fridge and scanning its contents.
Her mother was there in an instant, pushing her away from the meagre supply of food and pushing the door shut with her elbow. "School finished three hours ago Izzy."
"You made me walk home."
"It doesn't take you three hours to walk home." Her mother turned back to her sausages or whatever, turning around again to glare at Izzy as she went for the fridge again. "Get out of there. If you were hungry, you should have come home earlier."
"Well, how much longer until that's done?" Izzy asked, gesturing at the pan.
"Half an hour."
"It doesn't take half an hour to cook sausages."
"You keep this up and you won't be getting any at all."
Izzy threw her hands in the air. "Whatever. I don't want your stupid sausages anyway." Then, she stormed out, ignoring the furious shouts that followed her. Safely back in her room, she slammed the door behind her then stood still for a moment, listening. Her father had been out the back apparently; she could hear them talking in the kitchen. A strangled noise of frustration escaping her, she grabbed her bag, digging through it and pulling out the old, busted iPod that was probably the best thing she owned, hitting shuffle and turning the volume up to full, drowning out the house and her parents.
Furious, she stared at the ceiling for who knew how long, losing count after fifteen songs or so. When she finally sat up, it was dark outside, light from the house next door filtering through her window and illuminating her room in a weird sort of half-light. Music still blaring, she got up to close the curtains and turn on her own light, blinking at the sudden brightness. Only then did she pause the music, face screwing up in a frown when she heard people arguing. Within five seconds, she'd hit play again, drowning them out once more, and collapsed back onto her bed.
Sometimes, she wondered why they even bothered staying together. All they ever did was drink and argue and lose their jobs, with the occasional break from all of that to tell her off for breathing or whatever it was she was doing wrong. It was always the same – they picked out a new place to move to, secured a shitty job each and promised new starts. Within the first two days of moving in, they'd be back at each other's throats, within a few weeks one or both would lose their jobs and her teachers would start calling to ask why she was failing this class or that test. Eventually, one or more neighbours would complain about the constant yelling and disturbances, or some family's organisation would stick their nose into the Walker's business, and they'd move away and the whole cycle would start again.
She paused the music for a second again, but they were still yelling. Her ears were starting to hurt from the hours of loud rock music she had been listening to. She'd be deaf before she finished school if this kept on. She also needed some new music – it had been a while since anyone had let her filch songs off of them, and she'd heard everything she had so many times it was beginning to get boring (but it was still better than listening to her parents scream at each other for an hour).
Maybe she'd ask Shawn or Nuts for music. How well did you have to know someone before you could ask for stuff like that? It didn't seem like it would be a crime or anything. It wasn't like she was asking for money or something like that, kids shared music with each other all the time. Who knew how the music industry was still running, what with all the illegal downloads and music sharing that went on these days. Anyway, she couldn't see how it would be inappropriate to ask.
Why had she sat through school like it was torture again? School had by far been the best part of her day, even that final lesson when she'd been sat between the two most annoying people in the class. She'd give everything she had to go back now.
Sighing, she unlocked her iPod and set an alarm for the morning, as early as she'd dare to take a shower. Ignoring the grumbling and tight feeling of an empty stomach she stopped the music and pulled off her headphones, putting up with the yelling from the kitchen long enough to change into pyjamas and then went to bed, pulling her headphones back on. The shouting was dying down, so she could finally turn the music down, though she knew she wouldn't be awake long enough to fall asleep to pure silence. She'd long since learnt to fall asleep listening to music anyway, and so that was how she went that night, with an angry rock star screaming about his breakup in the background.
Morning dawned cold and bright, and Izzy left the house before the sun had fully risen, a blue hoodie pulled on over her school dress in an effort to keep warm. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing, and the half-hour walk to school warmed her up plenty. Almost two hours early, she wandered into a deserted school and found a bench pulled up against one of the buildings that wasn't wet with morning dew and faced east, catching the wan morning sun. Her head rested against the brick wall of the building, eyes closing against the sunlight, and she sighed a deep breath of fresh morning air, revelling in the silence. She'd fallen asleep to rock music and woken to the loud chirping of some very stupid birds in the tree next door, and she hadn't heard proper silence in two days.
A biting pain wrapped itself around her stomach, disturbing her peace and reminding her that she'd missed both tea and breakfast, and forgotten to hunt around for a purse or wallet when she'd been looking for food in the kitchen, not that she expected either of her parents to have any money on them anyway. What's more, she'd found nothing she could take to school in the kitchen, not even a few pieces of bread to make a sandwich with (if she could even find anything to put on a sandwich). The only thing she had found to make it worth her while was her phone, shoved up in a cupboard behind an empty box of cereal. She'd retrieved it and put it on charge while she showered, knowing that whichever parent had taken it wouldn't even remember doing that, let alone where they put it.
Pulling out the phone, she glanced at the battery. It was saying 50% now, but she had no doubt that that was just a lie to make her feel better. She'd be lucky if it lasted until the end of the day, seeing as her battery couldn't hold more than a couple of hours' worth of charge if her life depended on it.
It was only in the last fifteen minutes before classes began that she saw Shawn walking into school and went over to meet him. "Hey," she greeted him, falling in beside him as he wound his way through the crowd.
"Hey," he replied, eyes on where he was going. It was only when he reached the same spot they had eaten lunch in yesterday that he stopped and looked at her, an easy smile already on his face.
"What?" she asked, immediately on the defensive when she saw him almost laughing at her.
"Your hair looks like a birds nest," he replied, sitting down. "You're going to get in so much trouble with it like that." She joined him on the ground, pulling the hairband out of her messy ponytail and letting her hair fall down around her face. It was still damp in places, but at least it hadn't taken on an unattractive bump where the band had been sitting yet.
"Better?" she asked, sweeping a few stray locks behind her ear and pulling a face.
"Yeah. They're still going to tell you off though."
"Whatever."
"You might want to take off your jumper before school starts too," he pointed out unhelpfully.
"Shut up." She gave his shoulder a hard shove, but she was grinning anyway. "Where's Nuts?"
"Probably skipping school or something."
"You too much of a teacher's pet to skip?"
"No." Shawn shrugged, unfazed. "I just don't feel like being grounded at the moment."
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, cutting off anything she was going to say further. She pulled it out to find the caller ID flashing her mother's name on the screen. Sighing, she answered, bringing the phone up to her ear. "Hi Mum," she said reluctantly, already prepared for the earful she was no doubt going to get.
"Isabel Walker, you had better be at school by now or-"
"God, calm down, I'm at school," she said, cutting through what was quickly becoming a rant.
"So you bloody well should be." The rant was inevitable, Izzy realised with a sigh, staring hard at a line of ants crossing the pavement in front of her. "And what was all that last week about you needing me to drive you to school if you're just going to walk anyway? I've made arrangements just so that I have the time to drop you off in the morning, which, by the way, have now cost me money since you've decided to go swanning off on your own anyway. Some warning at least would have been nice Izzy. We don't all have time to be wandering around town doing whatever we like, you know. And were you planning on telling us you were going to be leaving at sunrise?"
"I just felt like leaving early this morning-" Izzy tried to cut in but to no avail – the woman on the other end of the line was on a roll now, voice quickly rising to a shout.
"Oh, you just felt like it, did you? Well I hope you can get another ride to school then because I won't be sticking my neck out for you again if you're just going to be an ungrateful brat when I do." She paused for a heavy breath. Izzy stayed silent, brows furrowed in annoyance, squishing the ants one by one with a stick. "Are you planning to come home on time tonight? Or are you staying out to wander the streets and get into trouble?"
"I'm staying out," she said angrily, delivering a lethal blow to another ant.
"I thought as much. If the police come knocking at my door, I'm disowning you."
"I know." The line went dead, and she dropped the phone into her lap before she threw it across the courtyard. It sported enough scrapes and cracks and dents as it was.
"Trouble with your parents?" Shawn asked quietly from his seat next to her, observing the battlefield that was littered with ant bodies.
"How did you know," Izzy snapped, rolling her eyes.
"What'd she say?" he asked.
Izzy shrugged. "Not much."
"Sure." His answer was drawn out and sarcastic, making it all too clear that he wasn't buying it. "What happened to your phone screen?" he asked after a moment of silence, wisely choosing to change the topic.
"What didn't happen to it?" she sighed, running a finger over the cracks in the screen. "I think I dropped it, and then Mum threw it at a wall…three or four times…" She trailed off, shifting uncomfortably. "You should see my iPod screen. It's even worse."
Shawn was grinning again suddenly. "Give me ten bucks and I'll fix them both?"
Izzy stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "Dude," she said finally. "What makes you think I have ten bucks? I can't even afford lunch." Her stomach grumbled at the mention of food, but she ignored the persistent, gnawing hunger.
"You can owe me," Shawn said with a shrug, like it was no big deal. She stared at him for a moment longer, then gave in, the school bell ringing in the background as she did.
"Alright then," she said, quietly pleased at the thought of having screens that weren't chipped or cracked or have black spots obstructing her view occasionally. They stood and dusted themselves off, heading off towards the main block of classrooms. "What've you got this morning?" she asked.
"Free," Shawn replied with a vindictive grin. "Have fun without me." She dug her elbow into his side, but his grin only grew wider. A few seconds later, he peeled off to the right, heading who-knows-where.
If he had a free, then that meant she had English with the god-awful teacher from yesterday, the stuck-up one with perfect presentation and a class seating list attached to the roll. At the very thought of him, she began to drag her feet, arriving at class well after everyone else. He stopped her at the door, eyeing her angrily.
"Isabel, isn't it?" he asked, not sounding happy at all.
"Yes," she replied boldly, meeting his eye and refusing to back down.
"Well then Isabel, I don't know what the dress code was at your previous school, but here we don't allow casual jumpers. Your hair needs to be tied back neatly as well."
She shrugged, not really sure what he was getting at. "Okay?" she said sarcastically.
His eyes narrowed and brow furrowed unhappily. "Go and fix it please. Come back when you're done." Not needing to be told twice, Izzy turned on her heel and stalked back off down the hall, not stopping until she was outside again and well out of the teacher's sight, breathing hard. Whatever. She hadn't wanted to go to that class anyway. Quickly, she located a toilet and entered, staring at herself in the one mirror that was there. The same girl as ever stared back, eyes flashing and cheeks flushed in anger.
God, Shawn had been right about her hair. It was absolutely awful. Usually, it was dark and pin-straight, but that morning she had showered and left the house with it still dripping wet, avoiding anyone who was getting up to yell at her. The wind had obviously done a number on it as it dried. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she started patiently combing her fingers through the tangled locks, trying to bring it back to a reasonable state. By the time she was finished, it was reasonable, at least.
What now? She could go and find Shawn, she supposed, though she didn't really want to drag him into trouble when her teacher eventually reported her missing. She'd been through this charade too many times to count, and though Shawn probably wouldn't care if she got him into trouble, she'd had other friends in the past who'd been less than appreciative of the subsequent detentions. A better option would probably be to stay here or wander the grounds until the lesson was over.
Either way, it was going to be a long ninety minutes.