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word about something else. A good job. Something better.’
    His last words followed me as I bounded upstairs.
    I slammed the door of my room so hard the house seemed to shudder. I wanted to cry, but I wouldn’t. Not because of him. Instead I threw myself on the bed and started to think.
    And do you know, what he said began to make sense. Working should be all that matters. If he had a job, any job, there would be less chance of Magnus Pierce drawing him back into his clutches.
    A chance of another job? A better job? Was that the truth, or was he telling lies just like I always did? If it was the truth, maybe I’d been too hard. Maybe, I thought, I should go back downstairs and just sit with him. Nothing dramatic, like throwing my arms around him and begging his forgiveness. But maybe, just to sit with him would let him see I was ready to take one small step.
    I was halfway down the stairs when I heard his urgent, whispered voice on the phone. ‘Don’t phone here any more. I can’t take the risk. I’ll get in touch with you.’
    He replaced the receiver hurriedly and walked guiltily into the kitchen, closing the door softly behind him.
    All my loathing for him returned. He was still in touch with them. Secret calls, like the ones I could remember from so long ago. Whispered calls.
    ‘I’ll get in touch with you.’
    It wasn’t finished. Magnus Pierce here in the house, and now this. He’d never change. Like Ralph Aird had said, the leopard never changes his spots.
    The hardest thing I’d ever had to do was go to school next day. Even harder than the day so long ago when the whole story of J.B. broke in all the papers. At least then the teachers understood, especially Murdo. He had done his best to protect me from all the unwanted attention, asking me to stay in his class to help with a class project, giving me a lift home.
    Today, there would be no one to protect me.
    But I was wrong.
    I still had Diane.
    Ralph had spread the word to everyone and as I walked into the playground half the pupils who were hanging around the school gates immediately started mooing like cows.
    Ralph sauntered up to me like a cowboy. ‘How d’ye like your steak, honey?’ Then he threw out his answer with a cowboy yell. ‘Just yank off the horns and put it on a plate!’
    Everyone burst out laughing at that. I’m sure I would have cried, wouldn’t have been able to stop myselfwhen suddenly, there was Diane pushing past Ralph with such force he stumbled and almost fell. He just glared at her.
    ‘Hey Connell, watch it!’
    She ignored him. She put her arm in mine and pulled me on. ‘Come on, Lissa, let’s get away from this low life scum.’
    It was a wonderful moment. She gave me all the strength I needed to stare right back at Ralph Aird and his nerdy friends. I was better than them. Even if J.B. had shamed me I would always be better than Ralph Aird.
    ‘You think you are something, Lissa Blythe,’ he rasped at me.
    I grinned back at him. ‘You are something too, Ralph Aird, but I’m too much of a lady to tell you what it is.’
    Then, with a cowboy yell of our own, Diane and I raced off.
    ‘Thanks, Diane, that was brilliant,’ I told her as we went into class. ‘That’ll show Ralph Aird.’
    ‘No, it won’t,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Someone like him has to be taught a lesson. We’ve got to bring him down a peg or two.’
    Always with Diane it was ‘we’. Whatever hurt me, hurt her. She was definitely, I thought then, the best friend anyone could ever have.
    ‘Yes, but what could we possibly do to Ralph Aird?’
    She sucked in her cheeks, a sure sign she was thinking hard. Her brain was working. ‘We’ll think of something,’ she said at last.
    Murdo was in a great mood that morning. He beamed a big smile around the class, and it was all thanks to Ralph Aird. His banner was almost finished. And even I had to admit it looked impressive.
    ‘By next week,’ Murdo bellowed, ‘it will be down off the wall, and