Page 125 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

connected to anxiety and the need to be absolutely certain that it was shared.

And she really didn’t feel like punching anybody that night. She’d had a good
time and just wanted to keep having one . . .
—

A COUPLE of the rugby boys were black. They both caught Pepper’s eye, and all
three looked apologetic for staring. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be
a fight. So Day, T, Pepper, and Luca tensed up. Day saw something interesting:

Chestnut Hair and Blue Almond Eyes were no longer eating cake and had tensed
up too. Not the way you tense up when you’re about to run away, but the way
you tense up when you’re not about to have any nonsense. And actually, looking
around, Day saw that Chestnut Hair and Blue Almond Eyes weren’t the only
ones. Others scattered across the carriage had become alert too, looking up from

the screens of their phones, some even rolling their sleeves up. “Jog on, lads,” a
barrel-chested man advised, and the boys seemed to reflect on numbers, then left
and took their thoughts of starting something with them. When they’d gone
Chestnut Hair leaned across the table and said, “I’m Willa.” Blue Almond Eyes
introduced herself as Hilde and said, apropos of nothing: “When we were little
we had chicken pox together.”
“Ah,” Luca said, sagely. “So you two are close.”

Willa rubbed her nose. “Oh, but we didn’t do it on purpose . . .”
Willa was seriously posh. She tried to sound estuary but couldn’t go all the
way. At the station Hilde turned to them and asked: “Are you students here?”
T, Pepper, and Luca talked over each other: As if! Yeah right . . . and all three
pointed at Day: “There she is, Miss Establishment . . .”
“Please just live your hate-filled lives happily, guys,” Day said.

Willa took Day’s e-mail address and said she’d be in touch. “We should all
cotch sometime.”
Cotch? Pepper thought that sounded sexual. Luca said: “Maybe something to
do with horse riding? That one blatantly rides horses.” Thalia just giggled.

—

THE MEETING on the train sort of answered the question of what made Day think

she could be a Homely Wench, but it didn’t answer the question of who a
Homely Wench is. Second year was a year of conscientious study for Day; she
couldn’t have another exam result fiasco like last year (too much time spent
visiting Pepper at Oxford Brookes), so she could only return to her questions of