Free Cry of a Seagull by Monica Dickens Page B

except the back of a studded leather jacket. Her arms were round the waist of the boy who was wearing it, clinging to him, dependent on him for her safety.
    The girl she had become was excited by the speed. So was Rose, but scared too, because she had never ridden pillion before, although to the girl it was a familiar thrill.
    When they swerved off the road and stopped, the girl raised her head, and Rose saw the glaring yellow eye at the back of the boy’s white helmet. She was the gang leader’s girl, the one who had confronted Vicky’s father in that other scene.
    When the girl took off her own helmet, she ran a hand through her stiff hair to make it stand up on top. From the inside of her skin, Rose could feel the heavy, clogging make up, the lipstick greasy and tasting of cheap raspberry sweets. The mascara was so thick she could see her own lashes. It weighed down her lids and made her blink. This was why she had to keep her head down when she was on the motorcycle.
    They were in the crowded parking space of a roadside café. Two other boys had pulled in behind them, each with a girl on the back of his bike. Rose recognized them all from having seen them when she was Vicky.
    Rose’s girl stayed outside with the boys, while the other girls went into the café to buy chips and Coke. They all threw cans and paper containers and empty cigarette packets down anywhere, which shocked Rose’s tidy soul. They hung about the car park for a bit, bored, complaining about the world and the general state of their life, and to ginger things up a bitthey bent the radio antennas of a few cars and ran fingernails along the paint.
    Rose’s girl was called Lynette, and everyone called her boy friend ‘Evil’. That was why his helmet was painted like that – the evil eye. Lynette followed him closely and copied what he did, whether she wanted to or not. Rose could feel that she was fascinated by him, and yet she feared and sometimes hated him.
    He talked to her as if she were dirt, and treated her roughly. Once he caught hold of her wrist and spun her round so that her arm was twisted behind her, his nails digging into the flesh. Rose could feel the agonizing pain. Lynnette screamed at Evil and stamped backwards with the high sharp heel of her boot. It caught him on the instep and he cursed and let her arm go, and would have hit her in the face if she had not ducked.
    Rose was afraid she would get herself murdered – what would happen to Rose if a person whose body she inhabited got themselves killed? – but to Lynette, it was all in the day’s work. She was Evil’s girl. He was her bloke.
    For a while, they all threw pebbles at the window of a disused shed to see how long it would take to break it. When the glass shattered, they yawned and said, ‘This place stinks – let’s get out of here,’ to disguise the fact that they wanted to run for it before they got caught.
    â€˜Where to, Evil?’ one of the boys called over the racing of their engines.
    â€˜Our place. Come on.’
    He started off before Lynette was ready, but she managed to hang on to him, and found the footrests for her feet. This was the life, she told herself. Hit one place, do a spot of damage to leave your mark, and then on to the next bit of aggro.
    â€˜EVIL WAS HERE,’ they sometimes wrote on a wall, or a poster, or in the dust on the back of a lorry, and then tore off somewere else. No one knew where Lynette was. Mum was always asleep by the time she came home, and never bothered to ask stupid questions in the morning.
    When they got to the marina car park that they had adopted as their territory, it looked the same to Rose as it had on her last journey: twilight, a few cars and stored boats, the sun going down behind the town on the other side of the river. The only thing that was missing was the big luxurious motor yacht, the
Princess Vicky
.
    Her berth at the dock was empty, but as