New Girl

Chapter Seven

On Monday Perrie didn’t go to school. I asked Leigh and Jesy and even Zayn where she was but they all said that she was one of those persons who happened to be ill like every month at least three times. So I asked the teachers to give me the stuff we did in school so I could bring it to Perrie’s.

So after school I took the bus to Perrie’s house and went up the driveway. The curtains were all drawn and as I rang I heard a female voice shout, “Jonnie, go open the door!”

“Go yourself!” A male voice shouted back and I knitted my eyebrows. Looked like they just had an argument or so...

The door got pulled open and I got “greeted” by a woman around forty. Her hair was rather messy and right now she had a cigarette between her middle- and index finger. Her eyes were surrounded by tons of makeup and her lips were shining bright red. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Who are you?”

“Err, I am Jade,” I said and put on a smiled, trying to sound as polite as possible. “I go to school with Perrie and I-”

“Perrie!” The woman shouted into the house before I could finish the sentence?

“Yes, mum?” Perrie’s voice asked and I had to admit sounded a bit raspy, as if she had been using her voice too much.

“There is someone for you.”

I heard some weird noises and within seconds Perrie was at the door. Her eyes went wide as she saw me and then she looked at her mum. “I’ll be right back, okay? You can go back in, if you want to, mum.”

The woman nodded and went back into the house, right after she had shut the door. Now Perrie was standing out with me and I was worried about her – she was sick and still was standing out here only in her PJs. “You should go back in...” I said and bit the corner of my lip. “You shouldn’t get any sicker.”

Perrie’s kind of shocked expression faded away and got replaced by a grateful smile. Before I knew what was happening she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. I could feel the vanilla in her hair but just as I wanted to take a deep breath she had pulled away already. “Thank you, Jade,” she smiled at me, showing me her white teeth. “But it’s okay, it’s not that cold after all.” She looked back to the house, bit her lip and then smiled at me. “Sooo, err, what are you doing here?”

I opened up my schoolbag and pulled out the stuff for Perrie. “I thought you could need all this stuff...” I handed it to her and she looked at the papers surprised. “Thank you!” She smiled again and I felt my heart racing. This was her true smile, the one she gave me when I did something for her, or just when I said something that made her laugh. I would kill to see this smile upon her face every day. “You wouldn’t have had to come here...” I could see her cheeks starting to turn a little rosé as she looked down at the papers in her hands.

“Oh, never mind,” I said. “I also wanted to check up on you. Are you okay or do you need anything?” I asked and smiled warmly at her.

She looked up at me in surprise again and shook her head. Her eyes showed me something like disbelief but also something else I couldn’t read. “Wow, you’re an amazing friend! I don’t know how I can make this up to you! And no, thank you, I don’t need anything... I’m just having a cold and a cough.” She smiled a bit before she cleared her throat. “As you can hear by my voice... it sounds really odd, sorry for that...” She smiled sheepishly but again there was something in her eyes that showed me she was hiding something from me.

“Yeh...” I smiled awkwardly, trying to read on her face but she was constantly turning her attention to the house. “I should better get back in quickly before I really become ill then.” She smiled and pulled me into a hug once again.