Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,65
you’re crazy. We’re going home.”
“You’re bailing on me?” They nodded. “Alright, suit yourselves. But listen. Don’t say nothing to nobody. I mean it — nobody.”
“Of course not.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, see ya.” They trooped off down the street.
“Can you trust them?” I asked.
“’Course. They’re sound. Anyway, they know I’ll kill them if they don’t keep quiet. They wouldn’t dare. Come on.”
We went ’round the side of the house and in through the back door, then straight through the kitchen and upstairs. A little plaque on the bedroom door had a border of roses and the words BRITNEY’S ROOM in the middle. Underneath were more recent additions: a skull and crossbones, a big sign saying KEEP OUT. Inside, the walls were painted dark purple, and there were posters and pictures cut out from magazines all over them — Kurt Cobain, Foo Fighters, Gallows. The bed had loads of pillows on it and a sort of blanket, which was black and fluffy. It was all pretty cool, really. I thought of my last room, at Karen’s, my few bits and pieces all smashed up.
“You can sit on the bed, or the beanbag, whatever.” I perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed. Britney sat next to me.
“So,” said Britney. “I’m Britney and you’re…Jemma?”
“Jem,” I said.
“Right.” Now that she’d got me there, into her room, she didn’t look quite so tough. In fact, she was pretty nervous, making me think the front she’d shown out in the park was just that, a front. Underneath she was as worried as the rest of them. After about a decade of sitting in silence, she found some music to put on and then decided to fix some food, leaving me on my own.
I sat there and looked around. It was a proper girl’s room. As well as all the posters, there was a real dressing table with makeup and jewelry stands on it, and framed photos all over the place: pictures of family and pets. There were a couple of her with a boy, younger than her — in one of them he had thick, curly hair, in the other he was bald, but still with the same big grin on his face. So there was a brother somewhere, was there?
The central heating was stifling after a few days in the open. I was starting to sweat, and I was pretty sure I was smelling rank, too. I took off the green coat, but I was still uncomfortable. I stripped off my hoodie and dropped it on top of the coat on the floor. Lying in a forlorn heap on the rug, they looked disgusting. They were filthy and, looking down, so were my jeans and shoes. Even though Britney’s room wasn’t exactly tidy, I felt really out of place, like a turd on a carpet.
Britney came back into the room, with a big pizza on a plate and a bottle of Coke and a couple of glasses. The smell of the food made me feel hungry and sick at the same time. She held a plate toward me. “Just cheese and tomato, that alright?”
“Yeah, cheers.” I took a slice, not sure if I could actually eat or not. She was tucking in, looking at me and trying not to look at the same time. I nibbled a little bit off the end of the slice, chewed it slowly, and swallowed. It was fine, it settled in my stomach and stayed there, so I ate the rest of the slice and picked up another one. We sat there, eating and drinking. It was bizarre. It was like how you’d imagine teenage kids to be, sitting in someone’s bedroom eating pizza and drinking Coke. But we weren’t just hanging out, talking about boys and makeup. We were sitting there, both aware of the silence, trying to think of something to say.
In the back of my mind, there was still the fear that it could all be a trap. So I asked her, straight-out.
“Why are you doing this? Being nice to me?”
She put her pizza down on the plate. “I’ve never met a celebrity before. Well, not unless you count that one from Skins who switched on the Christmas lights in the town square a couple of years ago, and she was a bitch.”
“A celebrity?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe not a celebrity. Famous, anyway. The whole town’s talking about you. The whole country is. There’s all sorts of rumors about you on the Internet, pictures,