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    Bad Company
    Bad Company
    Bad Company
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Bad Company

    By Cathy MacPhail

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Lissa's world has just turned upside down. Her father has been in jail and is coming home for Christmas. She can't bear the way her mother and sister are so happy and making welcome plans. After all, he was the one who let them all down and spoilt her life, wasn't he? Before he went to jail, they had a nice house, she had trendy clothes and pretty much anything that she wanted, but now she is taunted by her classmates.

    Life only gets better when new girl Diane arrives at school. Diane sympathises with Lissa and doesn't make fun of her dad. But Lissa doesn't realise that Diane is manipulative. And she doesn't realise either how much her dad loves her. It is only when a combination of events come together that she has to face facts about who and what are really important to her.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateOct 11, 2012
    ISBN9781408816530
    Bad Company
    Author

    Cathy MacPhail

    Cathy MacPhail won numerous awards, including the Royal Mail Award for Grass, and Out of the Depths has recently been shortlisted for the Scottish Book Award. Cathy's work is enormously popular with young teenagers, her trademarks being pacy and topical storylines. Cathy lived in Greenock, Scotland.

    Read more from Cathy Mac Phail

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      Book preview

      Bad Company - Cathy MacPhail

      Chapter One

      June 1st

      What have I done? What have I done?

      How did I ever get into all this trouble? I’ve never been so scared in all my life. Or felt so guilty. I’ve ruined Mr Murdoch’s life, and he’s never done anything to hurt me. He always liked me, though I can’t imagine why. No one else does, and now, I don’t blame them. Lissa Blythe, the wickedest girl in school. We’ve done a terrible thing, Diane Connell and I, and I don’t know how to change it. I can’t tell anyone the truth. No one would understand. We’ve been sent home. We’ll probably never go back to school. Diane’s right, she said they won’t want us there now anyway. I feel like crawling into a hole and dying. I’ll go down in history as evil and bad and …

      I threw the diary across the room in my anger. Why was I writing in that stupid thing anyway? This is the worst moment in my life and I’m writing in a diary. Yet, my diary’s the only place I can tell the truth. It’s the only place I’ve ever told the truth since my dad went into prison. Was that when I changed? When I found out that my father, so successful, rich and going places, was really a crook and the only place he was going was jail? Or was it when Diane Connell came into my life? Diane Connell, my best friend. Or is she? Now, I’m not so sure. I’m so mixed up. I’m so unhappy.

      I picked the diary up from the floor. It had fallen open at the entry for last December. How I remember that day. The day I found out that after almost three years my father was coming home from prison.

      December 4th

      I had just come in from school today when Jonny came screaming at me with the news. ‘He’s coming home, Lissa!’ He was jumping up and down with delight. ‘Daddy’s coming home for Christmas.’

      I ran into the kitchen to find Mum. ‘Is it true? Is he coming back here? To this house?’

      I refuse to call this place ‘home’. This is the grotty little house we had to move to when he went into prison and our real house had to be sold, and the cars and the timeshare in the South of France. We lost everything because of HIM!

      ‘He is your father,’ Mum said patiently.

      But I’ll never call him that again, or Dad, or Daddy. His name’s Jonathan Blythe, and I’ll call him J.B. if I have to refer to him at all. I hate him.

      ‘I don’t want him here. Not for Christmas. Not any time.’ I was yelling. I wanted to cry. But I wouldn’t. Not for him.

      ‘He’s coming home and that’s all about it.’ Mum tried to smile at me, but she doesn’t smile much any more and that’s all because of him.

      My mum’s lovely, with her long, curly, dark hair and her blue, blue eyes. Irish eyes, J.B. used to say and he’d kiss her. He was always kissing her. Is that what she misses? Is that why she wants him back, so he can kiss her again?

      She’s lovely. Even though the smile has definitely gone from her eyes, she could get someone else to kiss her no problem.

      ‘And Jonathan wants him back,’ she went on.

      ‘Jonny’s daft.’ And he is. Even though he’s only eight I can tell he’ll be daft for the rest of his life.

      ‘And little Margo needs her daddy too.’

      ‘Margo’s not even three,’ I shouted at her. ‘He’s been in prison since she was born. She doesn’t even know him. So how can she need him?’

      It was all so stupid. She was making excuses. It’s Mum who really needs him. I want to hate her too. But I can’t. She’s my mum, and while J.B.’s been away she’s made our life good. I still get my dancing lessons, and Jonny goes off to cub camp every year. We go on holiday every summer too. Maybe not to the South of France like we used to. This summer it was a lodge in the Highlands. But it’s all thanks to her. So why can’t she see that we don’t need him at all?

      I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn’t listen. All she said was, ‘I need him, Lissa.’

      The children of lovers are orphans, Mr Murdoch had once told us in English. I didn’t understand what that meant until today, till that moment. They were still so much in love with each other, I didn’t matter.

      I was an orphan.

      Reading my diary again, I can remember how angry I was. And even angrier when I went to school and discovered that it was all round the place that J.B. was getting out.

      Nancy Ryman and Asra Bebbi were waiting for me at the school gates when I got there. I knew they were waiting for me though they were pretending not to. They used to be my best friends. Now I wouldn’t even talk to them. When it had all come out about J.B. they had pretended they still wanted to be friends, still wanted me to come and sleep over at their homes. But I knew the truth. They were just feeling sorry for me. And I won’t have anybody’s pity. I promised myself that I would never set foot in their houses again. Nancy’s dad is always in the local paper for his charity work. They say he’s in line for an MBE. And Asra’s father is a consultant at the local hospital. Oh, I’d really be out of place with them now. The only thing J.B.’s in line for is parole.

      Nancy was smiling as I approached. ‘Hi, Lissa. Asra and I were wondering,’ she pulled Asra towards her for support. She wasn’t smiling. I suppose she thought I’d snubbed her enough in the past. Nancy never gave up trying. ‘Asra and I were wondering if you’d come to the Christmas disco with us. It’ll be great fun.’

      She knew about J.B. too. Both of them did. And they were feeling sorry for poor little Lissa. Well, no one was ever going to feel sorry for me.

      ‘With you two?’ I sneered. ‘How could that possibly be fun?’

      Nancy’s face flushed. She swallowed. For a split second I regretted it. I wanted to go so much. Asra pulled Nancy on.

      ‘Come on, Nancy. I told you it wouldn’t do any good.’

      I had a lump in my throat as I watched them go. In that second I would have shouted after them, but right then Ralph Aird yelled across the playground at me.

      ‘I hear the Godfather’s coming out on parole.’ He couldn’t ever leave it alone. I hated Ralph Aird, almost as much as he hated me. He was always chewing gum and trying to look cool. Scruffy was the word I’d use to describe him, with his baseball cap always turned back to front and his jeans that looked too big for him. He came from one of the worst areas of the town. His father had spent most of his adult life in one prison or another. Finally, ending up in the same one as J.B.

      I ignored Ralph Aird. Dirt beneath my feet. I swept past him with my nose in the air. But Ralph didn’t know how to keep his big mouth shut.

      ‘I don’t know how you can still be such a stuck-up wee snob, Lissa Blythe. Not when your daddy’s slopping out in the same cell as mine.’

      ‘He is not! He’s got a cell to himself and a job in the library.’ I had always insisted on that, even though I knew it was a lie. I was always telling lies about him.

      ‘The governor knows he’s innocent and he’ll be out soon,’ I used to tell everyone, believing that at least.

      But of course, he wasn’t. The papers screamed his guilt on the front pages, and he had confessed, quietly to Mum and me. I had believed in him. Made a right fool of myself sticking up for him, and he had let me down.

      Ralph swaggered into step beside me. ‘Know why I call him the Godfather?’ He aimed that at his friends who followed along

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