Read Me Like a Book

  She shoots me an angry look. “Keep it down, Ash! D’you want to get the store detectives on me?”

  I’m terrified, but kind of excited too. I know Cat sometimes nicks stuff from shops, as she’s told me, but I’ve never seen her do it before.

  “Chill out,” she says. “Anyway, it’s your turn now.”

  “No way. I’m not going to prison over a crappy tube of hair dye.”

  “Don’t be daft. No one’s going to prison. What about that perfume?”

  I breathe in the musky smell on my arm and imagine putting it on for a date with Dylan. I am tempted. But scared.

  “Go on. It’s your moral obligation.”

  “How d’you make that out?”

  “You said yourself it was a rip-off. It’s scandalous that they should charge that. They’re the thieves.” She pauses and lets a slow smile crawl up her face. “Come on, Ash. I dare you!”

  She knows I can’t resist the challenge of a dare. I wander back to the perfume counter and pretend I can’t decide which one I want. I pick up Sea Mist and hold on to it as I look at the others. It’s heavy and hot in my hand. I wander around the displays, pretending to look but not seeing anything. My heart is beating so hard it’s hurting my chest. Then I casually put my hand in my pocket and carry on walking, both hands in my pockets now. I try to look relaxed, but I feel clumsy and heavy. I know my face is bright red, and the bottle in my pocket is slipping against my wet palm.

  I walk around a bit more, telling myself to stay calm and look natural. I think of all the times I’ve wandered around this shop with no intention of stealing anything, and try to act in the same way. After a few minutes, I can feel my face cooling down. I take one last look around to make sure no one has seen me. Here goes.

  I take my hands out of my pockets, hold my breath, and saunter out of the shop. Easy.

  I am euphoric for a moment. Eight seconds, to be precise. That’s how long it takes the store detective to catch up with me. When I feel the hand on my shoulder, I think it’s Cat and I’m laughing as I turn around.

  “Ha, ha. You can’t fool —”

  “No. You can’t fool us either.” A dodgy-looking bald geezer in a raincoat is staring down at me. For a second I stare back. My first thought: Isn’t it sad when men try to hide the fact that they’re going bald? He’s a comb-the-remaining-three-strands-across-the-shiny-expanse-of-skull-and-no-one-will-notice type.

  My second thought: Oh, shit. I’m in trouble here.

  I don’t like the look on his face. I saw him earlier, actually, and thought he was some kind of pervert. He kept looking across at me from behind the mascara stand, and at one point I’d thought he was going to open up his raincoat and give me a flash of the shop’s biggest bargain. Then he disappeared and I didn’t give him a second thought. Till now.

  It slowly dawns on me that he isn’t a pervert. Well, he might be in his spare time for all I know, but it’s not his day job. His day job is much, much more terrifying for me right now.

  He pulls a badge from an inside pocket and waves it at me. “Store detective,” he announces.

  I smile innocently. “Can I help you?” I ask. Sweet, misunderstood child.

  Over his shoulder I notice Cat quickly walking out of the shop like she doesn’t have a care — or a conscience — in the world. What? She dragged me into this mess and now she’s leaving me to fend for myself? Just wait till I —

  “Come on, young lady.”

  Oh, God, not another one. I’m not that young, I want to shout, and I’m not a bloody lady! He takes hold of my elbow and starts walking me back into the shop.

  Then, just as we’re going in, Cat turns up.

  “Ash, what’s going on?” She looks outraged. What the hell is she playing at?

  “I’ve been —”

  “Sorry for dragging you away from your shopping, it’s just —”

  “Excuse me,” Three Strands says, interrupting her. “Your friend has been caught shoplifting, and I am escorting her to the manager’s office.”

  “Shoplifting? You’ve got your facts wrong there, mate.” Cat looks appalled. Even I’m convinced. “It’s all my fault.”

  I start to panic. Surely she doesn’t think he’s going to let me off just because she dared me?

  “I was calling her from outside the shop. I was positive I saw that guy off The X Factor walking down the road. Ash came out to see what was going on, so it’s my fault that she walked out of the shop. She’d never steal anything, would you, Ash?”

  “Er, no.” I try to play along, but I’m not sure what the game is.

  “Well, we’ll see about that, shall we?” Three Strands is getting impatient. “Would you mind emptying your pockets, please?”

  I don’t budge. Now what? Cheers, Cat. He reaches for my jacket and helps himself. When he pulls out the perfume, I gawp at him. “Oh, my God, I don’t know how that got there. Honestly,” I say as convincingly as I can, innocent confusion plastered onto my bright red face.

  “It was my fault. I called her,” Cat breaks in. “She didn’t have any intention of stealing anything, did you?”

  And finally, I realize what Cat’s up to. We’ve been doing the Theft Act in our law class and one of the things about stealing is that they’ve got to prove you “intended to permanently deprive” the shop of it or something. Luckily, it’s the one law class Cat has been to this term, although I’m amazed she took it in. Mr. Cartwright would be proud. Somehow I doubt we’ll be running to tell him about our field trip, though.

  They’re both looking at me.

  “N-no,” I stammer, finally getting into my role. “Of course not. I must have been dreaming, not thinking about what I was doing. I just heard Cat calling me and thought she was in trouble, so I went out to see what was up. That must have been when I accidentally put the —”

  “All right, all right.” Three Strands looks crushed. He doesn’t believe us for a second but knows we’ve come up with something that would wash in a court. “On this occasion, I will not call the police to press charges, but you’re both banned from this shop. That means don’t come back, all right?”

  The compromise hangs in the air between us. I catch Cat’s eye and she gives me a quick nod. “OK,” I agree.

  “And you will, of course, pay for the perfume.”

  “But I haven’t got thirty-eight pounds!” I protest.

  Three Strands raises an eyebrow and I quickly shut up. This is the best offer I’m going to get, and I’d better take it or prepare for a bit of finger-painting on a police file.

  Cat is getting her purse out. “I’ll lend it to you,” she offers. Yeah, too right. It’s her fault I’m here in the first place.

  Three Strands escorts us to the checkout, and we pay for the perfume.

  “Can I have it gift-wrapped?” Cat flashes a winning smile at the checkout woman. I hold my breath. The store detective’s face has gone kind of purple. One of his strands has fallen out of place and is sticking up in the air. For a moment I feel sorry for him. He’s only doing his job, after all. And he has been quite generous to us, all things considered. If Cat has blown it now, I’ll never forgive her.

  When the checkout woman sees the look on his face, she just shoves the perfume into a plastic bag and gives us a dirty stare as she passes it across the counter.

  “Nice doing business with you,” Cat calls over her shoulder as we leave the shop.

  I don’t say anything till we’re safely down the road, then I explode. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “What?”

  “Ask to have it gift-wrapped. Hadn’t you got me into enough trouble already?”

  “It’s a present,” she says.

  “What d’you mean it’s a —”

  Then she holds the perfume out to me. “It’s for you. Sorry.”

  She can always steal the wind out of someone’s sails, Cat can. There’s a moment of silence as I take the perfume from her.

  “Right. Thanks,” I
say, half of me touched, half still wanting to be angry. But I never can stay angry with Cat. I give her a hug. “I am never doing that again, OK? Never. Not even if you triple dare me.”

  “Fine.” Cat shrugs, then mumbles, “Goody-goody.”

  “And I don’t want you doing it either,” I add. “You’ll end up in prison, and what will I do without you?”

  Cat laughs. “You should’ve seen your face when he tapped you on the shoulder, though. Priceless.”

  I half-smile, half-grimace. “Never! Just don’t. OK?”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Cat waves a hand dismissively, then grins and nudges my arm before turning away. “Come on.”

  I follow her to the park at the end of town and we head for the swings. We push ourselves, higher and higher, daring each other on and on, laughing from the adrenaline, from the relief, and from the rush of air as we watch the world turn upside down and back again with every kick of our legs.

  “You want to come to my house to plan for next lesson?” Robyn asks as we pack up at the end of English the following week.

  I’m keen to get out of the classroom quickly. I gave Miss Murray a dumb excuse about having a stomachache for why I missed the last lesson, and I’m sure she knows I was lying. She’s like that. Sees the truth behind your lies. She looks at you so intently it feels as if she can see right into all the little hiding places that no one else is bothered about.

  Robyn and I have been paired up for a debate we have to do next lesson. We said we’d research it together. “Sure,” I say.

  Robyn smiles as if I’ve just given her my last Rolo. “Cool. I’ll see if Mum will make us pizza and milkshakes.”

  “Whoo,” I say with a touch of sarcasm. What are we, twelve? Then I feel bad. I mean, Robyn’s OK — a bit keen, a bit well behaved, but she’s nice enough. She hasn’t done me any harm. Plus she’ll probably be really good at the debate and I’ll be rubbish. I don’t want to muck up our pairing. I smile at her. “Sorry. I mean, that’s great. Thank you.”

  We head out together. Miss Murray’s busy shuffling papers around and doesn’t look up as we pass. I should be glad I’ve gotten away without being grilled about last class. Instead, I suddenly feel flat. Is she ignoring me? Is she annoyed with me because I ditched the last lesson? Or am I flattering myself and she doesn’t actually think about her students enough to care one way or the other?

  Whatever it is, I realize I don’t like it. I don’t want to be ignored by Miss Murray; I want to be smiled at and praised.

  Why I should give a toss either way, I have no idea — but I do.

  I smile at Robyn. “Come on. Let’s go to your house and get to work. We’re gonna win this debate, right?”

  Robyn grins back at me as we head out of school together. “Right!”

  “The fact is, the death penalty saves lives.”

  Kirsty Peters pauses to add dramatic effect to her statement. “The threat of paying the ultimate penalty could halt many potential offenders before they commit horrific crimes such as murder and violent rape. Furthermore, it is also the fairest way to offer justice to victims of such crimes. Why should the state pay to keep someone alive, feed them, and entertain them for the rest of their lives, when it is better, fairer, and safer to rid our society of them altogether? As the Bible says, an eye for an eye . . .”

  “That’s complete bollocks, Kirsty!”

  “Ash!”

  I look up at Miss Murray.

  “Language.”

  “OK. But how can she say that? Someone commits murder, so the state commits another murder to prove that the first murder is wrong. You can’t call that fair. It’s bollocks.”

  “Language!”

  “Sorry! But she’s wrong.”

  “Explain why, then. Argue your case. Remember, you are supposed to be honing your communication skills so you can develop an effective argument. This is a debate, not a break-time scrap in the gardener’s shed.”

  How does she know about the gardener’s shed? She’s only been here five minutes and she already knows the top smoking hole. I’ll have to warn Cat.

  I take a deep breath. “Right. Thank you, Kirsty,” I say super-politely. “Now I’d like to put forward our argument with some actual facts.”

  I pick up my notebook and read from the scrawl copied down the other night with Robyn. We had quite a laugh doing it, actually. Turns out she’s good company. And her mum makes amazing pizza!

  Robyn gives me an encouraging smile. I clear my throat. “OK, so firstly, there is no evidence at all for the idea that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. Scientific studies have consistently failed to show that executions deter people from crime any more than long prison sentences.”

  I take a breath and carry on. “Furthermore,” I say heavily as I glance at the opposing team, “executing the offender does not undo the damage that has been done. Much better to invest in programs to prevent similar crimes by potential offenders. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of spending money, it is, in fact, more expensive to use the death penalty than it is to keep someone in prison for life.”

  I glance at Robyn. She gives me a quick thumbs-up and mouths “miscarriage of justice” at me. I nod at her and turn back to the others.

  “And what about the wrongly convicted?” I carry on. “How would Kirsty and her cronies —”

  “Ash!” Miss Murray warns.

  “Sorry. How would Kirsty and her esteemed colleagues deal with this? The answer is, they wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Hundreds of people facing the death penalty have been released in their last days on death row, some only minutes away from execution. What if their lawyers hadn’t worked so hard? Innocent people — dead. Is this the kind of society you want? Horrific violence matched by state-run barbarism and murder? The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. Vote for sense, vote for dignity, and vote for human rights. Vote against this motion.”

  Heat creeping around my cheeks and neck, I sit down while some in the class clap and a few boo. Robyn cheers. My heart is racing.

  “All right, all right.” Miss Murray waves her arms at us. “We’ve heard lots of arguments on both sides this afternoon. Now it’s time to vote. Those in favor of the motion to bring back the death penalty in the U.K., raise your hands.”

  I count the hands: six.

  “Those against?”

  Twelve hands go up, and so does a cheer from the back. Robyn and I slap hands as though we’ve just won a gold medal at the Olympics.

  “Abstentions?” Miss Murray shouts over the noise, and the remaining two put their hands up — Christine and Helen, who sit at the front. They couldn’t get off the fence if it was on fire.

  Miss Murray looks up and smiles at me on my way out at the end of the class. Robyn’s gone on ahead as she’s got a guitar lesson.

  “You know, we’re starting a debating society. You should join us, Ash.”

  I laugh in her face. I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t help it. Me? Join a school club? I don’t think so.

  Miss Murray frowns. “What’s the joke?”

  I stop laughing and prepare for a lecture. All my teachers must have said that to me at some time or another: “Would you mind telling us all what you find so funny, Ashleigh?” They know they’ve got you trapped when they say that. If you say, “nothing,” you get a typical sarcastic-teacher put-down: “Well, if it’s nothing, I suggest you stop laughing and get on with some work like the rest of the class.”

  But if you told them what you were really laughing at, they’d have a fit. You can just imagine it, can’t you? Like in sociology last week. “Sorry, Mr. Foster, Janet was just telling me how the condom got lost while she was having sex with some lad she met at a club over the weekend, and how they tried to find it by —”

  And then you’d get, “That’s enough, thank you, we don’t need the details. Just get on with your work.” You can’t win.

  So I’m just about to go for the noncommittal ol
d favorite “Dunno” when I glance up at Miss Murray. She has this expression on her face: sort of interested and kind, and looking right into me, her eyes soft and wide open. It’s that thing she does that makes you want to tell her the truth. She should have been a lawyer or something, not a teacher.

  “Well, I’ve never, I mean it’s not my kind of, I don’t . . .” What am I trying to say? What is the truth? That I don’t think I’m good enough?

  Then it’s Miss Murray’s turn to laugh. I can feel myself blushing. Forget honesty. “I just don’t see the point in giving up precious time to go to some boring meeting with a load of pimply boffins,” I snap.

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back. Why on earth did I go and say something so pathetic? I’m definitely in for a lecture now. I try the nonchalant slouch — hands deep in pockets, mouth stifling a yawn, eyes semiglazed over — and wait for it to come.

  Nothing.

  In the end I have to look up. She’s still looking at me. And smiling. Not laughing. Not out loud anyway, but she must think I’m a right idiot.

  “Sorry,” I say eventually.

  “Don’t worry about it. But you should think about it. You’d enjoy it.” She starts packing her grade book and pens into her bag. “We could do with someone like you.”

  I kick my feet against each other and hope she doesn’t notice my ears have turned pink.

  “Someone loudmouthed and opinionated,” she adds with a gentle laugh.

  I look up at her and can’t help laughing too. She’s teasing me, but not in a horrible way. Not like Mrs. Banks. She wouldn’t know a sense of humor if it slapped her round her coiffured head.

  What’s the deal with Miss Murray? She isn’t like a normal teacher. She’s more like . . . I don’t know. I really don’t know. Something I can’t place. It’s unsettling.

  “You are very articulate, Ash. And very persuasive.”

  I haven’t got a clue how to reply. In the end, I manage to mumble “Thanks” and shuffle out of the room.

  Cat’s waiting for me at the gates.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Sorry, got held up, talking to Miss Murray.”