up. Maybe we could find a way to work together rather than setting ourselves against each other. I hurried to reply.
Yes! Shall we go to that little vegan café so we don’t bump into Stedhurst’s great and good?
She wrote back:
Yep, but don’t try and convert me to chickpeas! Food of the devil!
My heart felt a bit lighter as I slipped out of the house.
Faye was already waiting for me with a couple of soya lattes and vegan brownies. ‘I ordered for us because I can’t stay too long.’
And there it was, the little trill of alarm, that I was a tick on her to-do list rather than two good friends trying to find a solution together.
She leaned forwards. ‘That was all a bit of a nightmare last night, wasn’t it? How was Phoebe this morning? Did she shed any light on what happened?’
‘I haven’t seen her yet. They were both still asleep when I left.’
Faye looked surprised. ‘I’ve been asking Georgia all morning where they bought the weed from, but she keeps saying that Helaina got it.’
I frowned. ‘Well, that’s possible, isn’t it?’
She broke off a piece of brownie and sniffed it as though it might be laced with poison.
‘Everything’s possible,’ she said, giving me the impression she knew the truth but had decided to hug it to herself for a bit longer.
I gabbled on. ‘I just don’t know how schoolkids round here would get hold of drugs though. I mean, is it as simple as someone hanging around outside school? Do you think it’s something to do with these County Lines I keep seeing in the news?’
Faye did the sort of scoff she usually reserved for mothers who complained that their kids hadn’t been made a prefect. ‘I doubt that organised criminals have made it as far as Stedhurst. It’s such a small school, hardly worth targeting.’
‘So do you think they’re going down to Brighton to score? Or do they get them in pubs? I wouldn’t have the first clue where to look.’
Faye spoke slowly, as though she was talking to someone whose first language wasn’t English. ‘Jo, I know Lee was a bit over the top last night, but don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that the drugs arrived after Victor moved here? Think about it. He lived in Cardiff, a big city, with all the opportunities to make dodgy connections. Fair enough, Phoebe wasn’t an angel before, but since he’s been here, she’s started to be really off the rails…’
Faye’s words made me feel sick. I’d obviously been clinging onto a thread of delusion that her behaviour was challenging but within the realms of normal teenage rebellion. To everyone else, she was ‘really off the rails’.
My voice came out needy and feeble, almost begging her to take her words back. ‘Is she any worse than when we were that age? Albeit with different things? I clearly remember two lads stealing their dads’ cars and racing each other on the M23 and skidding across the central reservation after overdoing it on Woodpecker cider at a party. And everyone was smoking John Player Specials.’
Apart from me because my dad had said smoking made your breath stink and no boy would ever kiss me. I already thought I’d never get a boyfriend, so I couldn’t afford to take any chances.
Faye clicked her tongue in irritation. ‘Oh wake up, Jo! Helaina is not your average idiot teenage boy thinking he’s Lewis Hamilton. She’s a straight A student with everything to live for, not some loser raiding the cocktail cabinet for the dregs of the Christmas Galliano. If anyone can get into Cambridge to study philosophy it’s her, yet she suddenly decides to get off her head on skunk? You’re talking about the girl who spends her Saturday afternoons at the children’s hospice, not a misfit looking for kicks.’
‘Maybe it’s because they’re in the sixth form now and all the year above are doing it. I don’t think we can assume that Victor has some hotline to a Cardiff drugs cartel. If he was such a crackhead, he wouldn’t be the best rugby player in the school, would he?’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I rushed to do a recall, kind of like stabbing at the ‘close’ button on an email in that split second when you realise you’ve sent it to the wrong person. ‘I mean, one of the best players.’
Faye pursed her lips and did an exasperated sigh. ‘It’s really kind what