Chapter 5

"Has something happened?" Alice asked Carla. As she glanced about the schoolyard at her peers, she detected a tangible buzz in the air, like the hum of static electricity before a storm.

Carla looked up from her iPhone, eyebrows raised as if to ask, "really?"

"Haven't you been online?" Krissie asked. "What's wrong with you?"

"I slept with my hair wet and it took like half an hour to straighten it," Alice explained. "So... what's happened? Did Lisa Cartwright 'accidentally-on purpose' post naked pictures again?"

"Oh, no, thank God," Krissie gasped before making a puking gesture.

"It's Caleb Spencer this time. Apparently, right, he cut some guy's fingers off," Carla revealed.

Alice scoffed and screwed her face. "No way."

"And the guy is Miss Simmons’s kid," Krissie input, eyes shining with glee. Nobody liked Miss Simmons, but Krissie hated the woman with a fiery passion after having several run-ins with her. The woman was the very definition of a battle axe.

As Alice scanned the yard, she found Caleb was in his usual spot on the wall, lording over his minions. Usually, the so-called 'cool' kids were loitering about and smoking discreetly. Today was different. Caleb had gathered quite the audience. Even her group of male friends were there, hanging on his every word in quiet disbelief.

She felt herself being pulled toward the crown by her girlfriends, despite wanting nothing to do with Caleb and his gang.

"Here she comes," Ahmed shouted, sparking the others to turn and stare.

Miss Simmons drove an Audi, but by the way she parked you'd think it was a Boeing. She was one of those women who gave women drivers a bad name. 

Screeching into the carpark, she didn't bother making her usual 15 manoeuvres to get into the parking spot, just left her car plonked diagonally over the white line.

As her door slammed shut, a silence fell over the crowd. Alice watched in disbelief as the woman stormed over, face an angry shade of red, making a beeline for Caleb.

She turned to see Caleb slide from the wall, a smug smile plastered over his face.

"How's Andy? Did they manage to reattach his fingers?" Caleb asked in a conversational tone.

Miss Simmons must have taken this as an admission of guilt because her pace increased to the point she was practically running at him, face twisted into a vicious snarl. 

Caleb stood there as she battered him with her handbag so hard the straps broke and the contents scattered about the floor. A flurry of pens, papers and cling-wrapped sandwiches skittered across the tarmac, flying in every direction as the wind picked up.

She dropped the bag and began to beat him with her fists, though when he started to laugh at her, she switched tactics, clawing at his face and hair with her talon-like fingers. 

"You evil little bastard!" she was shouting, literally spitting the words as she tried to scratch the lad's eyes out.

"Come on, Miss Simmons," Mr Grady said in his firm teacher voice, pulling her off him.

"Go to my office," he said to Caleb, taking his eyes off Miss Simmons temporarily. He then turned back to her, trying to soothe the shaking woman out of her temporary, rage-induced insanity.

Caleb shrugged and sauntered off to the principals' office. Throughout the entire attack, he'd never moved his hands from his sides, letting her punch and scratch at him unhindered. His face was red and bleeding from a cut just beneath his eye. As he passed Alice, made eye contact, widened his eyes for just a second and looked away.

Alice had no idea what this gesture meant. Something about it felt threatening, and her mind went back to what he'd said the other day about her brother owing him money.

Had Andy Simmons owed him money? 

"Shit," Alice whispered.

"What's up babes?" Carla asked.

"Why did he do it?" Alice asked.

Carla shrugged, but Davey, overhearing her question butted in, telling her it was 'something to do with drugs.' 

"He started buying drugs off Caleb when Caleb's brother got nicked last year," Khalif added. 

Alice nodded. 

'My brother did the same thing,' Alice thought.

"People's been taking the piss, ya know?" Ahmed chimed in. He was one of Caleb's mates but sometimes hung out with her friends. Ahmed was one of those guys who could fit in equally well with the populars, the cool/hard kids and the nerdy group, but he chose to gravitate towards Caleb.

"Cuz he's still in school they think they can get away with not paying and stealing from him," Ahmed said with a tut and a shake of his head. "Guess they ain't gonna be taking the piss anymore, innit?"

Her male friends nodded along with him in agreement, though Alice was acutely aware they had no clue when it came to the world of drugs. Her brother had once sold them a bag of oregano, pretending it was weed. The pair of dolts had smoked it anyway, almost choking to death on the pungent Italian food-scented smoke. 

"What kind of psychopath cuts someone's fingers off?" Alice asked. It had to be a lie or a gross exaggeration. Surely.

Ahmed made a scoffing sound. "You ain't never seen him stomp some poor fuckers face into a puddle."

"There's a huge difference between beating someone in an angry rage and premeditated torture," Alice sighed. 

Ahmed shrugged. He didn't appear to care if she believed it or not, and why would he?

When Alice made her way to her seat in Biology, she looked out of her window at the carpark. Miss Simmons Audi was gone. 

'Will she be fired?' Alice wondered. She couldn't help but hope she had gotten fired. The woman's teaching skills were about on par with her driving, and she had a clear disdain for young people.

Just as Miss Green was beginning the lesson, Caleb sauntered in. A cheer rose from the other students, making him smile and look down. He took a seat beside the new kid, bumping his fist as he slid into the seat.

"Pipe down, guys, pipe down," Miss Green urged. 

The class ignored her.

"Alright, that's enough," Caleb said, raising a hand.

Instead of looking grateful, Miss Green narrowed her eyes in annoyance that they listened to Caleb.

Alice could understand why. It had to be painful to see a teenage delinquent rally more respect from the class than she could ever hope to attain. She flashed the woman a sympathetic smile.

The topic of today's class was the immune system, and though Alice was interested in the subject, she couldn't take her mind off Caleb. She was certain she could feel his eyes boring into her back, and even turned to find him staring daggers at her at one point. 

'What is his problem?' Alice thought. 'Is he still pissed off that I called him a scumbag?'

It was a stupid question. Of course he was.

The real question was, would he punish her brother for it?

'I could apologise,' Alice thought. He might accept.

'Or he might figure out that you aren't really sorry... just worried about retribution,' Alice sighed to herself.

She turned her head, pretending to look out of the window as she sneakily observed Caleb with her peripheral vision. He was ignoring the lesson also, looking down at his phone with his lips pursed in concentration. 

Something about his facial expression was cute. Not that Caleb was usually ugly. He wasn't. In fact, he was probably one of the better-looking guys in her class. At over six feet tall, he was certainly the tallest, almost a head taller than any of his mates. 

He wasn't unattractive, but he was unattainable, with a thorny personality that kept people at bay. Especially people from rich families.

'Is that why you decided to make an enemy of him?' Alice asked herself. 'Because you don't have a chance with him?'

Alice shook her head, trying to derail the irritating train of thought.

'No,' Alice decided, 'I dislike him because he's a mean bully to almost everyone and thinks he can get away with pushing people around.'

Alice noticed him smile at something on his phone. Probably a message from a mate or a funny meme.

It occurred to Alice that she rarely saw Caleb smiling. He had this mean, scowly resting face that he rarely dropped.

She tried to turn her attention back to the lesson but found it impossible.

...

'If you hate him so much... why are you still staring at him?'

Alice couldn't answer the question, so she tried to distract herself instead. Krissie had fallen in love at first with the new lad, Dylan. She was currently staring at him longingly across the Biology classroom, making little effort to hide her crush.

Alice pulled on her arm, making her drop her chin and jump in shock.

"Don't be so obvious," Alice hissed at her. 

"We have to pull him away from Caleb before he converts to full-on psycho delinquency," Krissie sighed. 

Taking a brief glance back, Alice saw the way Dylan was looking at Caleb, eyes bright and attentive, absorbing everything the taller boy was telling him. 

'I don't think that's going to be an easy task,' she thought.

"We tried," Alice said, shrugging sadly at her friend.

"He's so gorgeous and smart and well dressed," Krissie cooed. "So why does he hang about with that dreg?"

"Shush," Alice warned. "You don't want to lose a finger."

Krissie ignored the warning, turning back to stare at Dylan.

"I'd so lick his bumhole," she sighed.

Alice chuckled, screwing her face up in disgust at the thought.

"Probably don't start out with that as a proposition," Alice advised. "You know, maybe start with a date at the cinema and work your way up to eating his ass."

"Who's eating ass?" Carla interrupted a little too loudly, earning them a sour look from Miss Green.

The day passed by in a blur of conversations about ways to steal Dylan away and the incident with Miss Simmons. Nobody could seem to talk about anything else. By the time Alice got home, she had heard seven different versions of the event she'd witnessed, some so detailed and vivid she began to doubt her own memory of the event.

When she let herself into her house she was pleased and shocked to see her brother up and about, almost fully dressed and pacing about the living room. 

Until she saw the look on his face.

"Alice," he cried. "What the fuck have you done?"

“N—nothing,” Alice stuttered. "What... what do you mean?"

She knew what he meant. 

Since hearing about Caleb's exploits the anxiety had grown, prickling at her insides and making her feel queasy.

"You don't piss off a guy like Caleb Spencer, man," Eddy whined, pulling at his hair so hard it coming out in clumps. "The guy's a psycho."

"Then why borrow money off him?" Alice asked.

"I borrowed it off Wayne, didn't I?" Eddy shot back. "I didn't think he was gonna go down, did I?"

"Yeah, for caving some guys face in with a claw hammer. He sounds like the picture of sanity," Alice retorted, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, except he didn't do it, Alice," Eddy whined, balling his fists up and shaking them. "Why do you think I've always been so wary of Caleb? And now this. Look."

Eddy grabbed his phone from the sofa arm and held it out, showing Alice the picture on the screen. Her eyes couldn't make it out at first, it looked like a mess of pink and red.

Then she saw it.

"Ugh," she cried, pushing the phone away.

"You have to fix this," Eddy demanded. "That or get a grand together by Friday."

Alice didn't have a grand. She had fifty quid saved up from her babysitting job and a savings account with £500 from her nana, but that was a joint account in her mother's name. 

Alice racked her brain, thinking up ways to make money. The problem was, Eddy had sold just about everything they owned of value to a pawnbroker. The PlayStation. All of the jewellery. Every single old phone and laptop in the house.

"Maybe Mum and Dad will lend it to you?" Alice suggested. 

"Yeah, right," Eddy scoffed. "And maybe I'll find a magic money tree."

"Hmm," Alice agreed. If Eddy hadn't stolen from and lied to Mum and Dad so many times, it might be worth the ask. At this point, involving them would only make things worse. For Eddy and for Alice. 

"I'll talk to him," Alice decided. The thought of apologising was humiliating, but there wasn't much else she could do.

Would, 'I'm sorry I've called you names and put you down consistently since we met, so please don't hurt my family, okay?' really cut it?

Alice hoped so... but realistically? No, it probably wasn't going to work.