Page 17 of Uncharmed

Jessica looked at her blankly. ‘What are you on about, Sadness? Using big words again to make up for the fact you chat shit.’

Maeve sighed and tried to shoulder her way past the girls, but one shoved her hard and sent her sketchbooks tumbling to the floor. Annie darted to pick them up, but Maeve immediately shot her a warning look, which she knew meant to stay out of it.

Jessica snorted. ‘Drop a few more things on the floor, freak.’

‘Anything else valuable to add to my evening or can I go now?’ Maeve said as she stood with a completely unmoved expression. Jessica faltered, clearly running out of ideas for how to earn a laugh from her friends.

‘Erm . . . Your hair looks crap,’ she shouted as a last resort. ‘Did you wash it in the chip pan?’

Maeve held her gaze, stony-faced. ‘Yes. I simply love to wash my hair in vegetable oil.’

‘Going back to your coffin tonight?’ another girl chimed in.

‘How would I live in a coffin? Where would I keep the chip pan?’ Maeve turned to ask with a look of confusion.

At this, Jessica faltered again. ‘It’s ’cos you’re so pale,’ she said.

‘I gathered that much,’ Maeve nodded. ‘I can’t say I take that as much of an insult, though, when the only thing that could make you look pale would be the literal sun. You are tangerine. Is it intentional or are you trying to help air traffic control?’

Annie’s feet were glued in place, her arms frozen mid-swing, unsure whether she was supposed to step in. The spell was proving wholly useless. In its absence, she glanced around for a teacher, but it seemed that the canteen was a kind of declared no-man’s land. Maeve was holding her own and was evidently well practised at it, but the scene was making Annie’s chest ache. She longed to save her.

‘What’s in the books, Sadness?’ Jessica said, finally noticing a weak spot – the spray of open sketchbooks that had tumbled from Maeve’s arms. She reached for them, but Maeve was quicker and lunged to scoop them up, elbowing her out of the way. Still, Jessica managed to snatch the top one from the stack.

‘Don’t touch that,’ Maeve blurted out. She snatched for it back, the words coming before she could keep her well-checked composure.

Jessica scoffed, opening one of the pages and showing it to everybody in the circle. ‘What freaky stuff have you been drawing, Sadness? Are these the plans for all the demon worshipping you do at home? In between your vampire-hunting shifts? Gonna put a curse on us all? Hang on, who’s this?’

Annie only caught a glimpse, but saw that it was an impressive sketch of a girl.

‘Have you got a secret girlfriend? Or is this meant to be you? You wish you were that pretty, Sadness.’

‘Give it back,’ Maeve called, her rehearsed calmness shrinking by the second. A bloom of visible red embarrassment had spread behind her freckles and Annie found her heart tuning into Maeve’s anger, brewing in the air. She sensed it easily, her heightened empathy latching on. It was hanging like a storm cloud over the canteen, dark and intense and overpowering.

Jessica ripped out the page from the book and waved it over her head. ‘Everyone watch out, Sadness has been perving on us all and drawing us in secret. She’s probably getting off on it,’ she shrieked.

Annie’s own eyes filled when she noticed that Maeve was fighting back tears now, struggling as the other girls blocked her while Jessica shoved the sketches towards anyone who cared enough to look. Annie couldn’t stand it any more – even if it did make Maeve furious. Her desperate need to help took over. She marched towards the bundle of girls and tried to break a couple of them apart to pull Maeve out, a fiery protectiveness sparking at the pit of her stomach like kindling.

‘Stop it! It’s no one! That’s mine!’ Maeve shouted, oblivious to Annie. Her whole body was tense, her face screwed up as she tried to snatch her art away. ‘Give it back!’ She was straining to be heard over their cruel laughter that filled the whole canteen, more and more students joining the crowd when they noticed the trouble.

Maeve was yelling, elbows flying in every direction around her. ‘Why can’t you just leave me alone? I’ve never done anything to you.’ On the final word, she flung an accusatory finger in Jessica’s direction.

A streak of flames shot through the air like a bolt from the blue. The jet of fire only narrowly missed the very top of Jessica’s high ponytail and she yelped as it scorched her scrunchie, leaving a smoking trail behind it. All in the huddle that had been tightly formed around Maeve leapt back, the group dispersed as though electrocuted. The fire landed with a slam into the canteen wall, on a poster reminding students that kindness was always the coolest choice. The paper immediately burst into ash and embers, leaving the grey wall covered in just a giant black scorch mark. For one short second, nobody moved.

Then the floor began to shake – a low rumble pushing up from underneath the building, as though the foundations were being rattled – and the shutters across each window slammed in unison with a deafeningly loud, metallic crash. The fluorescent canteen lights cut out. The whole room was plunged into darkness and that soon broke the spell of silence. The canteen erupted into screams, everyone flapping hysterically. Annie felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. She knew exactly what had caused the power surge.

Magic. Wild, strong magic.

‘Maeve . . .’ Annie called over the chaos, a slight edge of a warning tone that sounded unfamiliar in its adultness. She stepped towards what she recognized as Maeve’s silhouette in the pitch black.

‘I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to . . .’

Annie reached for what she could just about make out as Maeve’s hand, to take it and lead her as quickly as possible away from the scene. But she jumped when she took it, finding something unexpected wrapped tightly in the palm of Maeve’s hand. With a few pink sparks, Annie cast out a small burst of torchlight to see it.

Maeve unfurled her fingers to reveal a perfect, round orange. A crackle of magic burst across the small green leaves.

‘Why do you have an . . . Oh no, is that . . . Is that Jessica?’ Annie whispered sharply.

Maeve peered up at her and just about managed a nod.