Hollow Pike by James Dawson

Cameron or Bobsy for fear of ridicule. Maybe that was where that little bit of sadness in his eyes came from.
    ‘Are you laughing at me?’
    ‘No, it’s great! Cool, rugby team Danny Marriott is secretly Science Boy!’
    He turned, looking around himself, now clearly paranoid. Lis knew the importance of concealing your cleverness only too well. Clever isn’t cool.
    ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I’m the girl who sold her imaginary baby on eBay, or whatever, remember?’
    He stifled a laugh. ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot about your secret past.’
    ‘You didn’t believe it, did you?’
    ‘God, no! I thought that Laura had finally lost the plot. It was bound to happen sooner or later.’
    Lis giggled quietly, aware that Dr Maloney was on patrol not far away.
    Danny went on, ‘But seriously, watch yourself around Laura. Her little mates are scared of her for a reason. I’m a bit scared of her myself to be honest . . . and hanging out with
Kitty and Delilah won’t help.’
    Lis frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    Danny’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I really like them. I went to primary school with them, but all those rumours . . . People say they worship Satan! Pretty dark
stuff!’
    Lis forced a smile to remain stretched across her face. Did Danny really believe that stuff? The cold possibility that Danny was no better than Cameron or Laura flitted through her mind.
    ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘Come on . . . They are pretty weird. If you hang around with them, people will take the piss.’
    ‘I think that’s the difference between you and me, Danny,’ Lis stated calmly. ‘I just don’t care any more! I can’t pretend to like someone as vile as
Laura. You can hang around with those muppets if you like, but I’m out.’
    Danny looked like a kicked puppy and she wondered if she’d gone too far, but at that moment, Dr Maloney drifted by. Lis grasped her beaker and headed off to find the weighing scales,
leaving Danny hanging at the workbench, dumbstruck as she walked away.

    School was a more comfortable purgatory now that Lis didn’t dread break times any more, and the weekend came around with fantastic speed. Jack worked for a few hours each
Saturday in Fulton at the dubious sounding Bagelicious and Delilah had explained that, to keep Jack from killing himself, they usually stopped by for a while to ease his boredom.
    After they’d eaten, the girls trotted down the high street. It was a tragic scene. A number of the shops were boarded up entirely, while others stood in various states of ruin, with faded,
chipped signs creaking in the wind. They had passed at least three bargain shops which proudly declared that all stock was ‘Only £1!’ (or in one case ‘Only 99p’). Each
of these stores had piles of tacky merchandise stacked up outside.
    There seemed to be one large restaurant – an Italian called Luigi’s – which represented every Italian racial stereotype known to man and looked like it hadn’t been
decorated since the eighties. There were also a disproportionate number of pubs for such a small town. So far, they’d passed The Cloven Hoof, The Slaughtered Lamb and The Green Man.
    ‘That’s why all the shops are so knackered,’ explained Delilah, waving at all the pubs. ‘Friday night is like Sodom and Gomorrah down here.’
    ‘Sadly lacking the sodomy,’ Kitty joked. ‘Seriously, though, Friday night is Fight Night!’
    Lis glanced around sadly. ‘Aren’t there any good shops?’
    Kitty and Delilah said ‘No’ in unison and then doubled up laughing.
    ‘Well, there’s obviously Bagelicious. Classy place! Oh, and there is one quite nice coffee shop on the top floor of the book shop.’ Kitty pointed across the street.
    ‘Tomorrow we could go into Leeds,’ Delilah suggested. ‘My dad owes me some money.’
    Kitty had some sort of family meal so she couldn’t go, and Lis wasn’t sure she could afford the long journey when she had so much homework