‘I can’t believe they got Roo Sánchez O’Reilly to do personal readings,’ says one, a tall woman with amazing eye make-up. ‘I love her Cards of the Week on Insta. She’s so gorgeous, isn’t she? Her dress is amazing.’
‘I love it,’ says the other. She catches sight of me at the sinks. ‘Oh, hi! You’re working with Roo, right?’
I smile at them. ‘I’m just helping her out today.’
‘Well, tell her we think she’s brilliant,’ says the first girl, with a warm smile.
‘I will,’ I say. ‘And she is.’
I’m still smiling as I head back to the dining room, and then I remember the last, very different time I accidentally overheard people talking about Roo.
It happened in the loo beside our form room in my second year of secondary school. I’d just flushed and was about to open the cubicle door when I heard some girls enter the bathroom and then Lizzie Lattin’s voice saying, ‘So who did you get as your science partner?’
‘Rosa Maria,’ said a voice I recognised as her friend Olivia’s.
‘Oh God, one of the creepy goth twins,’ said Lizzie. Someone laughed.
Creepy goth twins?I felt like I’d been slapped. Did they actually call us that?
‘She’s not that bad,’ protested Olivia, but she was laughing as well.
‘She’s so pretentious,’ said Lizzie. ‘I mean, Rosa Maria Sánchez O’Reilly? What sort of ridiculous name is that?’
‘Her dad’s Spanish,’ said Olivia.
Lizzie scoffed. ‘That’s whatshesays. I bet her name’s really Rosie O’Reilly or something. God, she’s such a little try-hard, it’s so annoying.’
If they’d just been talking about me, I wouldn’t have left that cubicle until I was sure they were long gone. I would have sat there letting what I’d just heard roll round and round in my head. I probably would have cried. Okay, I definitely would have cried. They’d always ignored us. Now I knew for sure they were sneering at us too. It was the confirmation of all my worst fears.
But I couldn’t let them keep talking like that about Roo. Roo, my only friend now my primary school friends had all forgotten me. Roo, who had given me that wonderful present a few months earlier. Roo was so much better than all of these bitchy girls. How dare they talk about her like that? Howdarethey? I felt a rush of rage and adrenalin as I opened the door of the cubicle with such force it banged against the wall and I marched out to see Lizzie, Olivia and their friend Lucy standing by the sinks.
The girls let out shrieks of shock.
‘I heard what you were saying about Roo,’ I said.
Olivia and Lucy exchanged uncomfortable glances but Lizzie just flicked her hair back and said, ‘Yeah, well, of course you did,if you were lurking in the toilets like a total weirdo, listening in to private conversations.’
‘I wasn’tlurking,’ I said. ‘And I couldn’t help hearing you. They can probably hear your horrible honking voice over in the gym.’ I glared at her. ‘Have you ever actually listened to yourself? You sound like a foghorn.’
Lizzie raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m sorry,whatdid you say?’
‘You heard me.’ I was full of righteous energy. I could feel the adrenalin pumping through my veins. For the first time since I’d started at that school, I felt like I was showing these girls my real self. ‘And you’re wrong about Roo. Her real nameisRosa Maria Sánchez O’Reilly. Her dad’s from Valencia.’
Lizzie rolled her eyes. ‘Valenthia? Am I supposed to be impressed by that?’
Lucy giggled. ‘What did you just call her? Roo? Like kangaroo?’
‘It’s her nickname,’ I said.
‘Don’t you have to have friends to have a nickname?’ said Lizzie.
‘Roo does have friends,’ I said. I could feel the rush of adrenalin start to drain away and a horrible shaky feeling take its place. This wasn’t what was meant to happen when you stood up to someone. This wasn’t what happened in films and TV when someone defied the mean girls. This was all going wrong.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Lucy. ‘They go to another school.’ She and Lizzie laughed. I could feel my face getting hot. I looked at Olivia but she avoided my eyes.
‘I’m sorry, but you and your little Spanish pal are so embarrassing,’ said Lizzie. ‘You think you’resooooointeresting with your eyeliner and your crystals and your creepy tarot cards,but there’s a reason you have no friends and it’s because you’re a pair of total freaks.’ She laughed. ‘And what makes it hilarious is that you’re full of yourselves for absolutely no reason. You’re not as special as you think you are, you know.’
‘We’re not full of ourselves,’ I said. ‘You don’t evenknowus. We’re not full of ourselves.’ My voice was starting to shake. I don’t know why I kept talking. I was only fourteen. Maybe I was still young enough to think that someone like Lizzie would listen to a reasonable argument.