Num8ers Read Free Page A

him up. Too easy, innit, sometimes? You walking home?”
    “No, got detention.” I needed to hang back for a couple of minutes, let the crowds of kids thin out. Karen would be waiting outside the gate. She was walking me to and from school at the moment, just until I’d “earned her trust.” No way I was going to let any of this lot see me with her. “See ya around, then.”
    “Yeah, see ya.” He drop-kicked his bag through the classroom door and swung out after it, and as I watched him I thought,
Stay away from drugs, Spider, for Christ’s sake. They’re dangerous.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    It was one of those gray October days when it never really gets light. The rain wasn’t exactly falling — it was just there, hanging in the air, in your face, blotting everything out. I could feel it soaking through my hoodie, starting to make my shoulders and the top of my back go cold. We were ’round the back of the shopping center, where the concrete slabs of its walls met the dull green streak of the canal.
    “We should go in the shops, at least it’s dry,” I suggested. Spider shrugged and sniffed. Even his movements were subdued today, like the weather had sapped his energy.
    “Got no money. Anyway, those security guys are on my case.”
    “I’m not staying here. It’s cold and rank and boring.”
    Spider caught my eye. “But apart from that?”
    “It’s crap.”
    He snorted in appreciation, then spun ’round and started off down the path. “Come on, let’s go to mine. It’s only my nan there, and she’s OK.”
    I hesitated. We’d kind of drifted into hanging out together, after school and on the weekends, since Karen had loosened thereins a bit. Not all the time — Spider sometimes went ’round with a gang of lads from school instead. From what I could tell, he’d run with them until they had a row, or even a fight, then he’d keep clear for a bit. There’s always something going on with boys. It’s like animals, isn’t it, monkeys or lions, sorting out the pecking order, who’s the boss? Anyway, for whatever reason, he wasn’t with them this Saturday, he was with me, and we were bored as hell. There was nothing for us to do.
    Going to someone’s house was a big deal for me. I’d never been asked before. Even when I was little, I was never one of those girls who skipped out of the classroom in pairs, holding hands sometimes, giggling, excited. Having friends over for tea parties didn’t fit in with Mum’s lifestyle.
    “I dunno,” I said reluctantly. Like usual, I was worried about meeting anyone new, not knowing whether to look at them or not. People think I’m shifty because I don’t like looking at them, but really I’m just trying to keep out of their lives — TMI.
    “Suit yourself,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets and setting off on his own.
    The rain was getting in my face, annoying me now. “No, hold up!” I shouted, and ran to catch him up, and we walked along together, hoods up, heads down, in the filthy London drizzle.
    It took about five minutes to get to his place, one of those maisonettes at the front of the Park Estate projects. It was in the middle of a row, on the ground floor, with a little squareof garden at the front. The garden was something else — some grass and a few flowers and that — but the great thing was all these little statues and things: gnomes, animals. It was hilarious.
    “Cool garden,” I said, half taking the piss, half meaning it. Spider made a face.
    “It’s my nan,” he said. “She’s crazy.” He vaulted over the low wall and picked his way through the concrete crowd. He swung his leg at the head of a particularly ugly gnome.
    “No, don’t,” I called out.
    He stopped midkick.
    “They’re nice. Don’t hurt them.”
    “Oh, God. Not you as well.” He shook his head and waited while I opened the peeling tubular metal gate and walked up the path. Then he pushed in the front door — it must have already been open — and