Free Moth Girls by Anne Cassidy Page A

not stood her ground, ordered Mandy out of the site, taken her name and address or called the police and had her charged with trespassing? Why had she turned tail, scuttled off into the car and driven away at speed?
     
She remembered the moment that she’d seen Petra’s face. The torch had lit it up for a second and the skin had been ghostly white. But she’d had a moment’s recognition. In that expression she’d seen the twelve-year-old Petra. The blank stare and the lips puckered suspiciously to one side. It had been
her
,
she was sure. But was it just like the bus sightings? She’d been sure each of those times as well.
     
Twice she’d been in that garden. The first time she’d been chased out by the angry neighbour. A glimpse of his face flashed through her head and she remembered something that she hadn’t thought about for years. The week after the three of them had crept into the garden she’d seen the neighbour again. He’d been in front of Mandy and her mum in the supermarket. She’d been unloading the shopping onto the conveyor belt and he’d stared at her for a moment and then she’d realised who he was. She felt herself go red and could feel his eyes on her and she rearranged the tins and bottles so that they went through first. ‘Heaviest stuff at the bottom,’ she’d whispered to no one in particular and then told her mum she wanted to look at the magazines. She walked off, her face burning, and anxiously hung round the books and magazines, thinking that the man would tell her mum what she’d done. But moments later she saw her mum pushing the trolley towards her. She was smiling at something so Mandy knew he hadn’t said anything.
     
She looked round and saw that Tommy had come into the hall. She shrunk a little in her seat because she sensed that he was looking for her. Something to do with the memorial service, no doubt. The very thought of it made her shoulders stiffen. He saw her then and waved, and came walking across, full of purpose, intent on speaking to her. A renewed sense of sadness hit her. A little bit of her had thought that his interest in the service had been because he was interested in
her
, but now she realised that wasn’t true. This was a project for him, like all the other things he did.
     
‘Hi!’ he said breathlessly. ‘I wondered if you’d come along to the common room so that I could just go through things with you. Just to check that you think it’s OK?’
     
‘Sure,’ she said, getting up, pushing her empty paper cup away.
     
She followed him along the corridor as he talked about the memorial. He was having music and poems and a couple of spots where teachers would say a few things about their memories of Petra and Tina and then he was going to say something about loss. He was ticking the sections off on his fingers in a businesslike way and she wondered if he would put this on his CV. But then she felt bad. He wasn’t someone who just did things for show; he did things because he liked them. She was allowing her disappointment to turn into something nasty and spiteful.
     
She’d seen him with Leanne first thing that morning and it hadn’t been awkward. Mandy had simply said, ‘Hello! I heard about you two guys!’ with as much nonchalance as she could manage. The rest of the morning had been busy and the twisty feeling she had in her chest seemed to uncurl. After the memorial school would go back to normal and then it would be half-term. After the holidays she could disentangle herself from the group and put some space between herself and Tommy.
     
The common room had been set out with chairs and a small platform. Behind it was a whiteboard with an open laptop on a small table beside it. Tommy ducked around the chairs and went up onto the platform. He leant over the laptop and pressed a couple of buttons and the white screen was filled with two photographs of Petra and Tina. They weren’t official school photos although Petra was wearing a