Mouths of Babes by Stella Duffy

Author:Stella Duffy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2005-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SEVEN

Time to make it happen.

Sally walked back with Janine to her home, saying they needed to talk, she knew things were hard, she wanted to make it better. Said how she’d been thinking about it too. Talked to her sister Cassie, you know how sisters are good at this stuff? Janine didn’t. Sally knew Janine didn’t, but it was a thing to say, a name to use. Janine’s big brother was in the army now, her little brother drove her crazy, she didn’t say much to her mother, and she barely conversed with her father. Not because he wasn’t nice, but who talked to their dad? She was sixteen, what was there for the two of them to say? Sally nodded, agreed, carried on. Her thought was that the boys – Will Gallagher for one, and Daniel Carver for two – they just needed to get to know Janine better, they all did, all the others. Because Andrea Browne wasn’t really like that, her whole school image, she wasn’t that bitchy at all, not once you got to know her. And sure, Will was preoccupied with how bloody gorgeous he thought he was, and Daniel was just too fucking clever, but there was more to them than that. More to all of them. (Sally was lying, doing it well, surprising herself and believing her story more with every scripted word.) And Sally had a plan. She was sick of all the stuff that was going on every day, and if she was sick of it, then Janine must be really fed up. So maybe there was a way to fix things. Maybe, if they just had a talk. Got to know each other a bit better.

Janine stared. She and Sally had been friends years ago. Not great friends, best friends, but there was that time, those times, way back, when they’d known each other better. Sat together in primary school, surnames one after the other in the register and became friends out of proximity if nothing else. That had been before big school, before the move up and away, on to new people. Before Sally moved on to new people. Janine shook her head, screwed up her forehead, that annoying wincing thing she did that had always pissed people off, always got her picked on. Sally tried not to notice it, not to comment, asked Janine if she thought maybe they could try. Janine tried a laugh, thought perhaps Sally was offering up the possibility of friendship as a new joke at her expense. But then Sally smiled back. Not a teasing, taunting smile, but a real one. A smile Janine recognised and remembered, from way back, when it was nice. Apparently Sally meant what she was saying, meant they could make it better. And so Janine agreed. How could she not? She’d had enough of the fear and the sickness in her gut every morning.

“Yeah, maybe we could.”

“OK, do you want to come back to mine?”

But Janine had to get the dinner on, her dad was working late, doing an extra shift for his mate.

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