I Am Margaret by Corinna Turner Page A

when we slip off.”
    “ That’s the idea.”
    Bane chucked me back over the fence and we began to hunt for my parents. Just my parents, this year. Kyle’s absence was like a raw scrape—it hadn’t cut all the way through the skin, but it still hurt. Let him be all right, Lord ... Would I ever know his fate?
    Bane grabbed me suddenly, trying to avoid a certain picnic blanket, but he was too late.
    “ Bane, there you are. We’re about to start,” snapped Mrs. Marsden, then her tone changed. “Oh, Margaret, dear, you’re here. Would you like to join us?”
    “ No, thank you, Mrs. Marsden,” I said politely. Being polite was always an effort, with her. “My parents are expecting us.”
    “ Aren’t you eating with us, Bane?”
    “ The Verralls are expecting me.” Bane’s civility was rather teeth-clenched, but he was trying.
    “ You should have told me, the food will be wasted...”
    “ And heaven forbid the food should be wasted!”
    “ Don’t use such silly, superstitious words,” cut in Mr. Marsden.
    “ Like it will be wasted...”
    “ You should’ve told our mother you wouldn’t be eating with us...” put in Eliot primly.
    “ I always picnic with the Verralls,” said Bane tightly. Then, almost hesitantly, he added, “I... suppose I could sit down and eat with you. If you’d prefer...”
    “ Of course we wouldn’t prefer it,” sniffed Mrs. Marsden. “But you know we can’t afford to waste food.”
    “ Well, you’re going to make me eat it up anyway for the next week while you have something else,” snarled Bane, “so I might as well have some decent cooking—and company!—tonight, mightn’t I?”
    He stormed off across the grass and I had to hurry to catch up.
    “ I hate them!” he snapped, when I caught his arm to slow him down. “Of course we wouldn’t prefer it,” he imitated his mother’s voice. “Like I’d have stayed anyway... They’re more worried about the effing food than me ! And she knows I always eat with you! Why would I speak to her unnecessarily to tell her something she already bloody knows!”
    “ Calm down, Bane. She is...”
    “ Don’t say she is my mum! She’s only my mum due to... due to... a freak of bloody genes, you understand?”
    He stopped suddenly, his fingers knotting in his jet black hair. “Yeah, that’s me exactly, isn’t it? A freak of bloody genes !”
    “ Bane...” I eased his fingers from his hair and smoothed it down gently. “I like your hair. I think it’s lovely. And I thought you liked it too.”
    Bane let out a long breath and looked at me.
    “ I do,” he admitted. “At least, when that lot aren’t looking at me like a slug threatening to crawl onto their picnic rug...” He broke off.
    Our faces were very close. Close enough to kiss.
    I turned my face away, resting my cheek on his shoulder. Not because I didn’t want him to kiss me, oh no no no. Because I did, far too much. And until we could do this properly, until we could finish what we started, until I knew if a future was mine at all, I didn’t want to muddle everything.
    He slipped an arm around me and squeezed and I slid an arm around him and squeezed, and we headed on.
    “ Look, there’s your mum and dad...”
    My parents, making the best of it as always, had put together a nice little picnic that’d been pretty much the only part of the evening I was looking forward to. But as soon as I saw them, Bane’s horrible family dropped from my mind, and I remembered what we were planning to do later.
    Suddenly I wasn’t very hungry after all.
     
     
     
    ***+***
     
     
     

5
    MATH PROBLEMS
     
     
    Variety turned out not to feature at all . By the end of three days, I could still remember one day from the other because of meeting new people and seeing the different guards for the first time, but the days were going to blend into each other rapidly enough. Depressing fact, considering how few we had left.
    Jane, who didn’t share my math problems, had worked