Free End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale Page A

backbone.
    I shook my head. Who was I kidding? He hadn’t been nice to me before then. He’d been nice to Max.
    The meal wasn’t great, but we ate it. ‘I want Ruby to cook,’ Theo said.
    Max scowled.
    Life in the Diamond–Yarrow household limped onwards.

Chapter Fourteen
     
     
    Max kept his head down. He did as he was asked, but never anything more. He didn’t sulk, but he didn’t talk to any of us if he didn’t have to. Mum went around looking as if she’d cry if you touched her. She didn’t talk about work. Calvin asked her one night where the pay talks were at.
    She just rubbed her head. ‘Oh, I think we’ll be going on strike.’
    She hadn’t talked about it for ages. Max was all she could worry about. I felt bad. It was kind of my fault, except that it wasn’t. Not really. I’d just started the whole thing.
    No, actually, I hadn’t. Max had started it when he’d stage-managed the kids into my little room. If he hadn’t done that, I would never have stood up for myself. That didn’t make me feel any better. Poor Mum — I wished I could make it all better. I couldn’t. Neither could Calvin.
    When I wasn’t thinking about the Max situation, I thought a lot about Brazil. The exchange kids would be here in less than a fortnight. At school, the orchestra had practices. The choir had practices. The kapa haka group had even more practices.
    The tickets for the social went on sale on Thursday. I decided not to go. Nobody would dance with me. I would sit around all night with my face aching from pretending to have a great time. Megan had to go because all the kids who’d been chosen for next year’s trip had to go. At interval, she said, ‘You guys better buy your tickets tomorrow. Just in case they all sell out.’
    I told her I wasn’t going.
    ‘You’ve got to come,’ she gasped. ‘Please, Ruby!’
    ‘Come on, Ruby, it’ll be fun. The band’s awesome: I’ve heard them before,’ Carly said.
    Tia glared at me. ‘Get some backbone, girl.’
    I glared back. ‘I bloody have got backbone and it’s telling me not to do something I don’t bloody want to. So there!’ I jumped up and walked away.
    I could feel their eyes following me. I kicked the grass. I’d love to go to the stupid social. I’d love to dance and dance and have a brilliant time. But I was
not
going to sit around yet again smiling a huge, fake smile while other people had a brilliant time.
    After interval, in English, Tia whispered, ‘You okay?’
    I nodded. ‘Yeah. Sorry I yelled.’
    But I wasn’t okay, not really. Why couldn’t I do the things I wanted to do? I thought about that as I went to pick Davey up. The Brazil trip. They hadn’t chosen me. But I was going to go anyway, so that didn’t count. The money was growing in my new bank account.
    But the Portuguese lessons weren’t going so well. Davey got bored with them and it was hard to get enough time by myself. The CDs were due back at the library next week.
    The social. The hot, crying feeling built up behind my eyes. Socials were crap. Nobody ever asked me to dance. Not ever.
    I can dance anyway
. Where had that idea come from? But I could — I could go out onto the middle of the floor and I could dance. Megan, Carly and I could dance together. Tia could dance with us if she didn’t manage to find a hot Brazilian boy. Knowing Tia, she’d go up and ask one of them to dance.
    I could do the same.
    Just thinking about it was enough to make my feet tingle. I walked faster, stamping to calm them down. But I could. I slowed down again. I knew how to say
please
in Portuguese. I could go up to one of the Brazilian boys and I could say four words in Portuguese. I could say
Excuse me, sir, please
and then I’d have to say the rest in English.
    He would laugh at me.
    Somebody would tell Max that I’d asked a boy to dance and that he’d turned me down.
    But I found I didn’t care about what Max said. I used to care. I used to be proud he was my brother. When he