The Magpie Effect - The Magpie Chronicles Book 1 (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 20.1

Mona was right: it was more realistic to feign ignorance than to storm into school on Monday morning with my hands bunched into fists and revenge on my lips. After all, how was I to know that Carmen and Wayne were behind this without Mona's otherworldly intervention? As much as I wracked my brain, I could decipher no plausible way to get myself involved in the situation without looking like a complete - yet impossibly accurate - psychopath.

So when I heard the news that Carmen and Wayne were officially going to the Halloween Ball together, I had to grit my teeth and act nonchalant - like the normal, not-bent-on-vengeance Saffy would have done. Inside, I was a seething tempest of rage. 

At lunch time I decided to distract myself by addressing a hollow place in my stomach, and I wasn't talking about hunger. It was something else, something that had been pining away at my conscience since the hand of trauma had stitched back mine and Vivian's relationship and made me realise that some people are simply indispensable.   

I found her in the canteen, sitting with a very puppy-eyed Wesley Adams. She was wearing red lipstick, and her compulsory school tie was covered in so many novelty badges that it could easily have doubled up as a bullet-proof vest. She was colouring Wesley's hand with a felt marker, and only noticed that I was standing next to her when Wes tapped her shoulder and shuffled away nervously.

"Uh, Debs," he said, and he prodded her shoulder.

"I know it tickles, Wes, you just need to man - what?" Debbie looked up from her design. When she noticed me hovering over her shoulder, her expression fell. My heart seized up in my throat, bulging up like the swell of a bull toad. 

"Oh. What do you want? Can't you see I'm kinda busy here?"

"I-I just came to say I'm sorry," I blurted out. It came out like an uncontrollable ream of ribbon, a single incomprehensible word.

Debbie rolled her eyes and viciously yanked Wesley's hand back towards her. Wes yelped. "Yeah, I've heard that before. Remember that time when we met up in The Old Curiosity to sort all this out, only you exacerbated the problem by ignoring me and running out on me?"

"Exacerbate?" I frowned. Debbie's eyes sharpened, razor-like.

"Don't you dare, Sapphire Sweetman!" she snarled. "Don't you dare try and insult my intelligence. You're the one who has nobody here, not me. You're the one with everything to lose."

I bit down on my tongue. Her words reverberated jarringly through my head. "You're right," I said, and I was being sincere. "I really am sorry, Debbie. I've been so lost in my own problems that I forgot to be your friend, and I'm sorry. I'm a selfish rodent and I don't even deserve your acquaintance, but I'm begging you, Debbie, begging you to accept my apology. I just want thing to go back to normal. I want to be your best friend again."

She held my gaze for a moment, pondering, but then shook her head. "I've heard all of this before, Saffy. I've already given you a chance. Why should I give you another one?"

"Because I miss you," I said, simply. I could feel the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. Don't cry, you idiot, I urged myself.

It was working. I could see the cracks appearing in Debbie's armour, spiralling out like a web until, finally, the whole thing shattered around her. She leapt to her feet and locked me in a hug. The air was knocked out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe, and she was hurting me, but it felt like joy. I could feel Wesley's smile washing over us as he watched the scene unfold. 

When she released me, Debbie fixed me with a severe gaze. I froze, afraid that she'd had a second epiphany and decided to take the whole thing back. "You are a selfish rodent," she told me. "You're right about that. But you're my selfish rodent."