Little Darlings by Jacqueline Wilson Page A

promise me you’ll go to school. No bunking off. You’re going to get a good education if it kills me.’
    She has to leave or she’ll be late for her cleaningjob at the uni. It’s a good forty-minute walk to the campus but at least she’s not in her high heels now, she’s in her old trainers – though she’s still blistered from yesterday.
    â€˜I wish you didn’t have to walk so far, Mum,’ I say, propping myself up on one elbow.
    â€˜You’ll be walking there yourself in a few years’ time,’ Mum says. ‘Doing some fancy degree course.
If
you get a good education.’
    I sigh. ‘OK, OK. Don’t nag.’
    â€˜That’s what mothers are for,’ she says. She gives me a kiss goodbye. She sings the usual verse from a Danny song: ‘
Goodbye, my babe, it’s time to go, don’t wanna leave, I love you soooo
.’
    I generally sing along with her but I shut up this time. When my alarm goes off at eight I shuffle around the house eating cornflakes straight out of the packet. I stop and stare at each Danny poster on the living-room wall. There are so many we don’t need wallpaper. I look at the biggest poster, a young Danny striking a pose, head back, singing into his mike.
My Destiny
is printed at the top.
    I suddenly tug hard on the poster and it falls down with a crash, the edges tearing, lumpy with dried Blu-Tack.
    â€˜I don’t want to be your Destiny, you silly old fart,’ I say, kicking the poster.
    Then I pick up my school bag and slam out of the door, turning the key and then slipping its string down my neck, under my school blouse. I’d give anything not to go, but I promised Mum.
    I go the long way round, of course. If I took the short cut through the estate, someone would be sure to spot me and they’d start chasing me. There are two major gangs on the estate, the Flatboys and the Speedos. They’re silly baby names but they’re not all little boys playing at being baddies. Some of the bigger guys carry knives, real serious flick knives, not kids’ penknives. Jack Myers is in my class and his eldest brother is the leader of the Flatboys. The Speedos captured him recently, and when he swore at them they cut him down his arm and tattooed him on either side of his eyes with a lead pencil to show he was a marked man. So then the Flatboys caught one of the Speedo kids and hung him by the ankles from the top-floor balcony and very nearly dropped him.
    The Flatboys and the Speedos mostly pick on each other. They don’t often hurt girls, but you never know. Both gangs would go after me because I’m a Maisie. They call me that because our house is one of the maisonettes around the edge of the estate. Everyone hates the Maisies and thinks we’re snobs. You’re
especially
hated if you own your house instead of renting.
    So I trudge all the way round the outside of the Bilefield Estate. My school shoes are too small for me and cramp my toes but I don’t want to tell Mum because she’ll only worry.
    I hope she’s feeling better now. My own stomach cramps thinking about her. I try to remember Sunset’s seven different bedrooms to distract myself. I count them on my fingers. Then I make up different outfits for her. It’s almost as if she’s walking along beside me, keeping me company. She isn’t wearing any of her cool designer clothes, she’s in her pyjamas and huge fleece, and she’s a bit embarrassed about it too, but I promise I’ll flatten anyone who dares tease her. I can do that, easy-peasy, with most of the kids in my class. Well, I’m a bit wary of Jack Myers and Rocky Samson and some of the other boys already in Flatboys/Speedo gangs, but I’m just as tough as any of the girls, even Angel Thomas, and she’s twice my size and should have been christened
Devil
Thomas. I can fight and be really mouthy if I want, but most of the time