Jenny Downham Before I Die

Eighteen

Morrisons is the biggest supermarket in the shopping centre. It’s nearly school kicking-out time and it’s busy.

‘Take a basket,’ Zoey says. ‘And watch out for store detectives.’

‘What do they look like?’

‘They look as if they’re at work!’

I walk slowly, savouring the details. It’s ages since I’ve been in a supermarket. At the deli they have little saucers on top of the counter. I take two pieces of cheese and an olive, realize I’m starving, so help myself to a handful of cherries at the fruit bar. I munch on them as I walk.

‘How can you eat so much?’ Zoey says. ‘I feel sick just looking at you.’

She instructs me to put things that I don’t want in the basket – normal things like tomato soup and cream crackers.

‘And in your coat,’ she says, ‘you put the things you do want.’

‘Like what?’

She looks exasperated. ‘I don’t bloody know! There’s a whole shop full of stuff. Take your pick.’

I choose a slim bottle of vampire-red nail varnish. I’m still wearing Adam’s jacket. It’s got lots of pockets. It slips in easily.

‘Great!’ Zoey says. ‘Law successfully broken. Can we go now?’

‘Is that it?’

‘Technically.’

‘That’s not anything! A runner from the café would have been more exciting.’

She sighs, checks her mobile. ‘Five more minutes then.’ She sounds like my dad.

‘And what about you? Are you just going to watch?’

‘I’m your lookout.’

The assistant at the pharmacy is discussing chesty coughs with a customer. I don’t think she’s going to miss this tube of Relief Body Moisturizer or this small jar of Crème de Corps Nutritif. In the basket go crispbreads. In my pocket goes Hydrating Face Cream. Tea bags for the basket. Signs of Silk Skin Treatment for me. It’s a bit like strawberry picking.

‘I’m good at this!’ I tell Zoey.

‘Great!’

She’s not even listening. Some lookout she is. She’s fiddling about at the pharmacy counter.

‘Chocolate aisle next,’ I tell her.

But she doesn’t answer, so I leave her to it.

It’s not exactly Belgium, but the confectionery section has miniature boxes of truffles tied with sweet little ribbons. They’re only £1.99, so I nick two boxes and shove them in my pocket. A biker’s jacket is very good for thieves. I wonder if Adam knows this.

At the end aisle, by the freezers, my pockets are bulging. I’m wondering how long Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food would last in a coat when two girls I used to go to school with walk by. They stop when they see me, bend their heads close together and whisper. I’m just about to text Zoey to let her know she needs to help me out when they come over.

‘Are you Tessa Scott?’ the blonde one says.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you remember us? We’re Fiona and Beth.’ She makes it sound as if they only come in a pair. ‘You left in Year Eleven, didn’t you?’

‘Ten.’

They both look at me expectantly. Don’t they realize that they come from another planet – somewhere that spins much more slowly than mine – and that I have absolutely nothing to say to them?