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She nodded, but her lips stayed shut.
What could have happened? ‘Does this have something to do with the rehearsal later?’
‘Well, I’m not doing that,’ she said, flicking her hand like it was by the by.
‘Not doing what?’
‘Lucy Jenkins’ part. The second witch.’
I nodded slowly. She had already told me that the only reason she did drama was because she loved, loved, plays. The texts, the theory, the watching, the set design and music. I’d reassured her that’s how it had started out for me, and we’d made her an understudy for a part with very little time on stage. Even though I’d promised I could help her learn to enjoy acting, just as I had.
She laughed. ‘Do you know what Ava came as to our last Halloween party?’
I shook my head.
‘Sexy witch. Obviously. Do you know what every other girl came as?’
I shook my head.
‘Sexy witches. Obviously.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you know what my mother did to my witch costume?’
I shook my head.
‘Made me a sexy witch. Obviously.’
‘If you don’t want to play the part, someone else will do it.’
As was so often the case with Jenna, I could feel that there was something she was keeping from me. Something big.
Bullying was a terrible thing. On its own, it could destroy a person. But Jenna had so many other things going on – how was I to know which battlefront she was fighting on today?
I remembered something she’d said that had made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, about a boy with his own car who she’d gone on a date with. She’d said something like, ‘He’s getting this big promotion,’ like she was trying to impress me, and it made me think he was much older than her – not a boy at all – but then she’d backtracked and claimed she was talking about his sports team. I’m sure she was lying.
I opened my mouth but she sat down suddenly and started crying and then wiped her face clean and started fiddling with a wooden ruler. ‘You like it though,’ she said.
‘I like what?’
‘Being sexy.’
I opened my mouth but I wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Rose isn’t speaking to me,’ she said, changing the subject. I was happy to move on from my apparent sexiness.
I had noticed they hadn’t been sitting together recently. She had shrugged me off when I’d tried to ask about it in the library. ‘Did you two fall out?’
She started crying again, black eyeliner smudging onto her cheeks. ‘How are you meant to know what to do? How do you know what’s right?’ I could see tension building inside, flushing her cheeks.
‘Jenna?’ I sat next to her. ‘What’s going on?’
She shook her head. ‘I saw something,’ she said, seeming to make up her mind.
I nodded, staying quiet. It’s usually the best way.
But she looked away.
