Like This, for Ever

he said, as though it were perfectly normal for ‘hairdressing’ to take an interest in a fourteen-year-old boy’s hair. ‘Green hair to match the green costume. They’re going to stick leaves in it as well. The other two are well pissed off because they both have dark hair and it just doesn’t look as good on them.’
    Jorge wanted to be an actor. A couple of months previously, he’d successfully auditioned for a West End show. To his annoyance, though, because he was only fourteen, he had to share the part with two other boys. Boys who, if Jorge were to be believed, didn’t have a fraction of his talent.
    ‘Did I miss anything?’ Barney asked, conscious he should have arrived an hour ago.
    ‘Nah,’ Harvey told him. ‘Lloyd won the darts tournament, but then Sam threw one at Tom Roger’s arse and we were kindly invited to leave.’
    ‘Can’t leave you lot alone for five minutes,’ said Jorge.
    ‘Did you get banned?’ asked Barney.
    ‘They said they didn’t want to see us for the rest of the week,’ said Lloyd, a large-eyed, dark-haired boy who was in the same class as Jorge. ‘Then they said we had to go straight home and not hang around outside.’
    ‘Like this?’ said Barney.
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Lloyd, his brown eyes wide and serious. ‘Hanging around like this would be very wrong.’
    Hatty got up without a word and set off down the ramp. With the possible exception of Barney, she was the best blader of thegroup. She raced up the other side and stopped herself at the crash barrier. Lloyd, Sam and the two brothers were looking at a bent wheel on Harvey’s skateboard. Only Barney saw Hatty’s head lift like a dog’s that had just caught a scent. She was looking at something in the middle distance. After a few seconds of staring, she turned and sped back to the boys.
    ‘Guess who’s back,’ she said in a low voice.
    The others all turned, some looking at Hatty, others trying to see what she’d seen.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘You’re dreaming again, Hats.’
    Barney looked past the factory outbuildings that were used for storage now, beyond the wall and railings that surrounded the property, into the streets of South London. Terraced houses on the other side of the road, beyond them the huge abandoned house with its ornate brickwork and blank, black windows. He stopped blinking, stopped looking for anything in particular and waited, letting the focus of his vision shift, until he didn’t see the outline of buildings, the line of the pavement, the skyline. As he knew they would, the pictures in front of him began to break down, to lose their structure and reduce themselves to their simplest form. He waited for the patterns to emerge. And then the discrepancy was obvious. There she was, her face pale against the brick wall, her dark coat smoother, reflecting more light, than her surroundings. He wondered how long she’d been there this time, and whether the being-watched feeling he’d had earlier had been entirely down to Jorge. He blinked and what he could see became normal again.
    ‘She’s behind the red car,’ he said. ‘You can just see her head and shoulders.’
    ‘Weirdo!’
    ‘What she want, anyway?’
    ‘Bleedin’ perv, spying on kids. I think we should call the filth.’
    ‘She
is
the filth,’ said Barney. ‘She’s a detective.’
    Silence, then, ‘Are you sure?’ asked Jorge.
    Barney nodded. ‘She lives next door to us,’ he said. ‘Her name’s Lacey, I think.’
    ‘So what’s she doing? Keeping an eye on you?’
    ‘We hardly know her,’ said Barney, knowing he’d be in big trouble if Lacey told his dad where he went at night.
    Jorge stood and stretched his neck, staring directly at the detective. She carried on watching. Jorge’s upper lip began to curl.
    ‘Shit!’ said Hatty, in a shrill voice.
    ‘What?’ The others turned from the detective to the girl in their midst.
    ‘Lost my earring,’ said Hatty, pushing back her hair to reveal her tiny ears. One had a small gold stud in the shape of a leaf. The other was empty.
    ‘Keep still,’ said Barney, reaching out. He didn’t think he’d ever felt anything as soft as Hatty’s hair, except perhaps the fur on the long-haired rabbits at the pet shop. Touching it sent a sharp sensation right down into the pit of his stomach, making him want to squirm on the spot. Got it! The tiny piece of gold was between his fingers and he dropped it into Hatty’s outstretched hand. Not the earring, just an integral