Bad Company by Cathy MacPhail Page A

but very deliberately. He’d been waiting for me. He looked at me as if he was disgusted by what he saw.
    ‘What kind of girl have you turned into, Lissa?’ He held up the diary. ‘How could you have done such a terrible thing? How could you have been so cruel?’
    I shrieked at him, refusing to feel guilty. ‘You had no right to read my diary. That’s private!’ I tried to snatch it from him but he held it high away from me.
    ‘Maybe so, but I’ll tell you this, Lissa. You are going to school tomorrow and you’re going to confess everything.’

Chapter Ten
    All that night I screamed and screamed at him, but he wouldn’t change his mind. ‘You’re going to own up to what you have done, and that’s all there is to say.’
    It was no use appealing to Mum. She’d never go against J.B. ‘I don’t know why I find it so hard to believe you could do such a thing,’ she said, clutching a snivelling Margo against her. ‘You did the same thing to little Jonny’s poster. How could you have been so cruel?’
    ‘You don’t know how cruel Ralph Aird can be. He deserved it.’ I refused to feel sorry for Ralph now, or guilty. He had brought it all on himself.
    When I said that J.B. jumped to his feet. ‘Deserved it!’ he yelled at me. ‘Deserved to have his hard work ruined, something he’d put so much of his time into ripped to shreds.’ I could have answered him then, told him about what I’d put up with from Ralph, all the time he was inprison. Told him how he’d made a fool of him for working in Burgers A GoGo. But he didn’t wait for an answer. Didn’t want one. He took a step toward me. ‘What could he have possibly done to deserve the wrath of you and your snobbish little friend?’
    ‘Don’t you say that about Diane.’
    He didn’t listen. ‘Maybe you both suddenly realised he was better than you. And he was going to prove it by winning that competition.’
    ‘He’s not better than me,’ I shouted. ‘Ralph Aird’s the scum of the earth.’
    I sounded like Diane when I said that. Scum of the earth.
    ‘And what does that make you?’ he shouted back.
    There was no arguing with him. No getting round him.
    ‘I won’t tell, and you can’t make me.’
    ‘Yes, I can.’ He held up the diary. ‘If you refuse to confess of your own accord, I’ll hand this over.’
    That was the worst threat of all. All my feelings, my hopes, everything was locked in the pages of that diary. I had no doubt he’d do what he threatened.
    ‘You’re the one that’s despicable. Reading someone else’s private diary. No wonder I hate you.’
    That got to him. He sank on to the arm of the chair. ‘Hate me then. I shouldn’t have read it, I know that. Butwhen I saw it lying there I thought maybe inside I’d find the key that might get me through to you. I just wanted us at least to begin to respect each other again, Lissa. I didn’t know you hated me that much. I didn’t expect to find anything like this.’
    ‘I’ll never respect you again. I hate you.’ I was crying now. Didn’t want to but couldn’t help it. I didn’t see any way out of the nightmare he was creating for me.
    ‘Don’t say that, Lissa.’ Mum put her arm gently on my shoulder but I shrugged it off.
    ‘I’ll go with you to school tomorrow,’ J.B. said quietly.
    ‘To make sure I go?’ I snapped.
    ‘No. I want to support you.’
    That almost made me laugh. ‘You! An ex-con. Oh yes, I really need your support.’
    ‘I’ll go anyway,’ he said.
    ‘But Jonny … your interview,’ Mum reminded him.
    He looked up at her and managed a smile. He could always manage a smile at Mum. ‘I’ll go after. It’ll be all right.’
    But it wasn’t all right. It was the most humiliating day of my life. To stand in the headmaster’s office and have to admit to him, my voice shaking, exactly what I’d done.Murdo was there too, and that made it a hundred times worse. His eyes were hard and cold as he stared at me. I tried not to look at