The Secrets We Keep by Nova Weetman

Author:Nova Weetman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UQP
Published: 2016-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

For some crazy reason, the next morning I get to school early. There is hardly anyone around and my portable is still locked so I sit on the steps outside and turn my earrings around and around in my ears. Being here feels different today. Like my real life is happening somewhere else and this is just a strange dream that I’ve stumbled into.

‘You’re early.’ Tam’s walking towards me. She’s wearing yet another fancy tracksuit and her long hair is up in a perfect ponytail.

‘Yeah,’ I answer, because what else is there to say?

She sits down on the step next to me. ‘Ellie’s mum died last night.’

‘Oh.’

She looks at me, her eyes bloodshot with dark rings around them.

‘So Ellie won’t be at school. All week. And she wants you to go to the funeral.’

‘Me?’ I breathe in sharply.

Tam nods like she doesn’t believe it either. ‘Yep. You. She messaged me to tell you. So consider yourself told.’

‘When is it?’

‘Probably Thursday. Don’t know yet.’

‘Okay.’

‘You get a day off school,’ she says, like she believes that’s the only reason I’d go. ‘Apparently you two bonded. Over something. She won’t tell me what. She just said you understand. Maybe that means I don’t.’ Tam sounds more confused than sour. Then she asks, ‘What did you bond over?’

I shrug, wanting this conversation to go away. Fast.

‘You aren’t going to tell me either. Nice. Thanks.’

I stay silent. I’m already in the middle of something I don’t want to be and, if I say anything else, it’s just going to get worse.

‘We’ve been best friends our whole lives,’ says Tam. ‘You’ve only known her a few days. This sucks.’

Tam stands up and walks away from me, like I’m the reason Ellie’s mum died.

‘My mum died, too,’ I say loudly, catching Tam before she enters the yard. A metallic taste floods my mouth and I want to run to the taps and drink water to clear it away.

She spins around. ‘Really?’

I nod, wishing I could swallow the words back down, but knowing that now they were out, there was nothing I could do.

‘And Ellie thinks you understand?’

Do I?

‘Maybe,’ I tell her, looking down at the ground. A line of soldier ants makes its way towards my shoe. I wonder what the ants will do if I don’t move my foot. Will they march up my leg and under my leggings?

‘So I’m out of the club?’

Looking up, I see Tam towering over me like I’m an ant on the ground. Her face is flushed. I shouldn’t have told her. It hasn’t helped.

I stand up straight, wanting to be as tall as possible. Of course it doesn’t really work, but at least now I come up to her shoulders.

‘There is no club,’ I reply.

‘Ellie obviously seems to think there is,’ says Tam, her voice tight. ‘A “kids-without-mothers” club.’ She clenches and unclenches her fists.

‘I don’t know what Ellie thinks,’ I say, wanting Tam to back off. ‘You’re her best friend.’

‘Yeah, well now it’s all Clem this and Clem that.

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