The Writers' Circle

A-Star Student

'If it weren't for that telephone call, she'd never have found out about us,' said fifteen year old Becky. 
	She picked at her sandwich moodily. Darren rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky beneath the canopy of leaves he lay under. 'Maybe your Mr Collins has it in for you.'
	'He isn't my Mr Collins, he's just a stupid teacher.' Becky shoved her uneaten sandwich back in her lunchbox, and pulled out a carton of orange juice. She plunged in the straw, squirting juice up her arm.
	They sat beneath a shade of a huge Elm tree in Castle Park. It was lunchtime, and Becky and Darren, as usual, had arranged to meet up at the same spot in the park. Their names were carved into the trunk of the tree. It was their tree. 
	'I don't know why you're so upset. You've bunked a few lessons. So what?' He shrugged to reinforce his point. 'You know your trouble? You worry too much.' He rolled over, and playfully lunged at her so she was forced to let go of her drink and fall back on the grass.
	She laughed, forgetting her mum's disapproval and the way Mr Collins sneakily went behind her back to telephone her mum about missing school.
Becky's mum thought Becky was going places - the places where other teens were never expected to follow. The hoodies; the unemployed; the drug addicts; the single mums - those teens.
	Becky didn't belong in that category. She was a predicated A-star pupil.
	Trouble was she met Darren.
	Darren wasn't a predicated A-star student. He was an eighteen year old, unemployed hoodie with a drug problem. He wasn't a single mother, so four out of five weren't bad, she supposed later when her mum locked her in her room after she'd returned home from school.
	'For your own good,' she shouted through the door. 'You're not seeing him, anymore. He's a bad 'un.'
	Becky's mum would know all about "bad 'uns". Becky's dad was a cocaine addict and a punk. The now equivalent of a hoodie, Becky assumed. She had never known her father. He had scarpered as soon as Becky's mum told him she was pregnant. Darren wasn't perfect but he loved her. She was his "princess".
	Her mum didn't know what true love was because she never had it herself. Becky, angry, turned on her CD player and began playing James Blunt loudly. Not a brilliant choice to rebel to, plus her mother liked James Blunt. Becky searched her CD's for something else. Her mobile vibrated in her jeans' pocket. She took it out and read the message. It was from Darren.
	Gt sprize 4 u, it said.
Becky turned down her music, and called him. She blurted out her woes.
	'What a bitch your mum is,' he said. 
'She's worried about me.' Becky jumped to her defence, albeit, weakly.
'I'll spring you,' he said.
'I-I couldn't. In any case I've homework and -'
'You love me or not?' he said, his voice sharp.
'Of course I love -'
'Good. Now hold on.'
	'How -' she began, but was cut off.
	At her dressing table, with her pretty ballerina figurines, she began to apply pink lipstick. 'I had nothing. But it's not going to be like that for you, Becks.' She remembered the words from her mum. 'You're going to be something.'
	And apparently that "be something" was an A-star student. Her mum had been over the moon at her predicted GCSE results. And university beckoned in her mother's perfect vision of the future. Becky wondered if she had already bought her her graduation gown and mortarboard. 
She'd only been in her first term in year eleven when she met Darren. She had been wandering through Broadmead shopping mall in her hometown of Bristol one Saturday, when a scruffy looking lad approached her asking for a light.
	'You can't smoke in here,' she had said.
	'Darling, I'll do what I like,' he had answered and she believed him. His rawness touched her. It was exciting to her safe and humdrum life. Disorganised to her organised. They had got chatting and ended up outside sitting beneath the old Elm tree. They had become inseparable, causing her to run late into school - or miss it completely - and fail to complete important coursework so she could be with Darren. And now five weeks and three days on, people were trying to split them up. It wasn't fair.
Ping! Ping!
	Becky looked across at her window. Ping! She went over and looked out. Darren, down on the pavement, was looking up at her. 
	She opened the window. 'Ssh, mum'll hear,' she cautioned.
	He raised his middle figure. 'To your mum,' he said. 'To the world,' he added, wheeling around with his raised finger jabbing the air.
	Becky climbed onto the windowsill. Below was the flat garage roof, which she jumped down to. Cautiously she hung from it, and Darren lifted her down.
	'I've a car. C'mon,' he said. He grabbed her hand, and they ran around the corner with James Blunt still blaring from her window.
Around the corner was a blue Fiat. 'I didn't know you had a car,' Becky said, as she slipped inside.
	Darren grinned and climbed in. 'I don't,' he said, and started the car before Becky could reply.
	'Stolen?' she asked.
He floored the accelerator, and Becky was thrown deep into her seat as the car roared off. They squealed around corners, overtaking anything in their way. The car swung around a corner and approached a roundabout. An L-driver was in front of them, and a lorry was on the roundabout. Darren swung around the L-driver and neatly cut in front of it to enter the roundabout first.
	Becky closed her eyes as the lorry gave a long blast on its horn. She felt its wind through Darren's open window, and braced herself for collision. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes and looked round. The lorry had jack-knifed, and the occupants of the L-car were standing in the road staring on.
	'Did you see. Darren, that lorry almost crashed,' she said, horrified.
	Darren laughed. His eyes were bright, brimming. 'You're scared,' he said, his voice dripping with scorn.
	With her heart thumping and trying to act nonchalant, she buzzed her window down and let the wind takes her hair. She tried to relax. The lorry didn't crash. Everything is fine. But she wasn't sure she liked this new, aggressive, side to Darren; she'd only witnessed it twice before. Once when he stole some cigarettes and a bottle of vodka from the local shop, and again when he caught a lad on the bus looking at her, and thumped him.
	He was usually very sweet and kind. The aggression was down to people misunderstanding him. If the shop had allowed him to pay for the cigarettes and vodka the next day, he wouldn't have had to steal them. And the lad on the bus could have been a pervert.
Soon they were in the country, and Becky watched the passing hedges and tried to pretend her fear was excitement. She turned on the radio, hoping it would soothe her out of control heart. She turned the volume up to maximum. 
'I'm so proud of her,' said her mum in her head. 'My little Becky so grown up and making the right choices.'
	Becky felt tearful and blinked them away before Darren noticed. She loved her mum. They'd been a close mother and daughter; shopping together, visiting the theatre or going to the pictures and swooning over the latest Jonny Depp movie. She looked at Darren askance, her mum only wanted what was best for her.
	They sailed on. The road sweeping passed impossibly fast and Darren making the car squeal on every corner they turned. The outside blurred. They peeked a hill and the car left the ground momentarily. Becky's belly filled her mouth, and her knees banged against the dash. She grabbed the sides of her seat in panic.
	Darren laughed.
'Darren,' she said. 'I feel ill.'
He barely glanced at her. 'My princess not enjoying herself?' The way he said "princess" no longer sounded like a compliment, more like a sneer.
Darren rummaged in his pocket, then tossed her his tin of tobacco. 'Roll me a joint.'
The tin fell to the floor and Becky had to bend to pick it up - difficult with the car being driven at speed. Grabbing it, she righted herself and opened it. Some spilled.
'Watch it!' he barked.
It smelled funny, but she dutifully rolled him a cigarette. He took it without a word of thanks.
	'Shit!'
	Becky glanced up. Then, as a loud siren roared in her ears, she glanced behind out of the back window. 'The police. We'd better stop,' she said.
	'You serious?' He glanced at her. The little car was pushed on. Becky had never been driven at such speed before. Darren crashed the gears and the car lurched, the engine protested but he urged it on. Faster.
	Becky grabbed the dash. 'Darren!' she screamed. This was too fast. This was insane. 
	Darren was laughing. 
	'Darren. Stop! Please!' The car sped on, the accelerator making a high whinny sound. 'If you love me, you'd stop,' she found herself begging.
	He laughed louder and swung the car around a bend. Becky was thrown against him, and he shoved her back roughly. Becky felt sick. The hedgerows no longer blurred; they'd disappeared. 
	The police car was right behind them, its blue light flashing.
	There was a crossroads up ahead and coming both ways were vehicles. One of them a police car - to head them off.
	'Ohmigod.' Becky could barely breath. 
She closed her eyes and instantly the image of her mother was there. Her pretty mum with her swinging ponytail and smiling, proud, eyes. 
	The car shuddered around her as Darren crashed the gears and spun the wheel so it was facing the other way. He'd wanted to trick the chasing police in turning the car quickly and speeding off in the opposite direction, but it didn't work. The car's nose ended in a ditch and Darren was hurled at the window-screen where the crash propelled him.	
	Becky, good little Becky, her seat belt firmly on, sat transfixed, until her door was wrenched open by a police officer.
	'I want my mum,' she blurted, and began to cry.