Ellie Campbell - When Good Friends Go Bad

SEPTEMBER 1980

A frenzied ferret of a lad with white spiky hair and red-rimmed eyes stood over Jennifer Bedlow and sneered menacingly, his lip curling and chin thrust forward as if daring her to take a whack at it.

'Stupid little first year.'

'First year yourself,' Jen returned sullenly, not certain if he was. He looked big for eleven but then everyone was bigger than her and his uniform seemed suspiciously new. No grass stains on the knees of the trousers, no buttons dangling by a thread or snow showers of dandruff marring the blazer's immaculate surface.

Without warning, he gave her a good hard push and bolted before she could respond. Winded, Jen prayed no one had noticed and slipped quietly away from the throng of teenagers amassing beneath the shadows of the nine-foot-high wrought-iron gates.

It was her first day at Ashport-on-Sea Comprehensive, a sprawling grey brick building which loomed sinisterly over the playground, as architecturally exciting as a five-year-old's Lego project with all the razzle-dazzle and appeal of a high-security prison. Charged with the education of over a thousand pupils, its claret-coloured blazers had come to symbolise a scourge of shoplifting, petty crime, violence and vandalism to the quaking neighbourhood. Once ensconced in its listless clutches the most ferocious appetite for learning, ardent dreams of glory or fiery blaze of ambition would shrink and fade in the face of overcrowded classrooms, apathetic teaching and lack of government funding. Of the thirty-eight eleven-year-olds about to join Jen's class, one would try to stab the RE teacher, two would be sent to borstal, three would end up pregnant by fourteen, and four would almost be expelled for an act of arson.

But all this was yet to come...

Jen slumped miserably against a wall, already longing for the familiar security of the small village primary school she'd loved for so many years. Nearby another new girl with long neat plaits and a navy tunic reaching well below her knees cowered as three menacing trolls loomed over her with peroxide mullets, inflated chests and crotch-brushing skirts. One of them darted a look Jen's way and she hastily studied her sensible Clarks shoes, kicking some dirt over their gleaming surface.

Suddenly a roly-poly girl with olive skin and a thick mud-brown ponytail planted two sturdy feet in front of Jen.

'Hello, I'm Georgina Giordani Carrington.' She thrust out her hand and in some crazy automatic reflex Jen found she'd opened two fingers to imitate a cutting motion, as if she were being challenged to a paper, scissors, stone contest. She snatched them back as Georgina continued in a posh imperious voice, 'Can I play with you?'

'I'm not playing anything.' Jen blushed furiously, instantly feeling a failure. As if she should be running around organising games of tag, kick-the-can or forty-forty home. But did kids do stuff like that in big school or would that just brand her a hopeless loser? She had no idea. Her mind went into free-fall panic. Why, oh why, hadn't she brought her new and baffling Rubik's cube with her? At least it'd have been something to show everyone.

'Oh.' Georgina shrugged and turned to lean against the wall. Out of the corner of her eye Jen saw the trolls give the plaited-haired girl a sharp shove then stomp away, cement shaking under their seven-league bovver boots. The girl scuttled over.

'What's a les?' she whispered.

Jen exchanged glances with Georgina, relieved the silence had been broken and yet worried this fragile spirit might attract the bullies' attention to them. Her face was very pale, her jet-black hair massacred by an uneven fringe, and her dazzling blue eyes were framed by fairy-tale lashes.

'They asked if I was a les. I didn't want to say yes or no in case it was like a PLP. When you say no they say "Well, you're not a proper living person" and if you say yes, they say, "Then you're a people's leaning post" and lean on you.' Jen and Georgina looked at her in amusement. 'I'm Rowan by the way,' she breathily added, beaming bravely.

'Well, a les is a lesbian.' Jen had heard the word that summer and turned her widowed father into a stammering wreck by asking about it. Now the ordeal of listening to his excruciating explanation was about to be worth it.

Georgina and Rowan stared blankly at her.

'You know.' Jen gave a look she hoped would say it all. 'A girl who likes other girls.'

'I like other girls,' Rowan ventured timidly.

'So do I,' Georgina asserted.

'Well, I don't mean just likes them, I mean likes them, you know.' She flapped her hands, getting as hot and bothered as her dad had been when he tried explaining. It was all more difficult than she'd anticipated. 'Wants to kiss them and things,' she elaborated and found the word he'd told her. 'A female ho-mo-sex-ual.'

'A homosexual!' Georgina appeared shocked and their new acquaintance even more puzzled.

For once in her short life Jen actually felt wise beyond her years. She, who, when asked by friends only six months ago if she knew what a period was, had answered with great authority, 'Course I do. It's a full stop, isn't it?'