From Pride of Lions

I didn’t know what revenge was before I met Bunny. I didn’t think I even knew how to be angry. I wasn’t the kind of person who got angry, even when I should have.

But now I was chasing after them.

Now I was clawing at their hoods.

Now I was pinning down their flailing legs.

I was a wild dog, a wild harpy; I wanted to see blood.

Afterwards, we ran with our arms in the air. I didn’t know what it meant to be free, but that was how I felt.

Free.

None of us wanted to get to school first, so we met at the crossing by the orange blocks of flats. Jasse actually had to take a detour to get there. We were standing with the front wheels of our bikes pressed together in a star when the Balcony Lady started yelling at us. Her boobs swung in all directions as she waved her arms in the air. If you don’t clear off, I’ll ring Securitas! She pronounced it sircuritas and was the second craziest person in Bergnäset. First place went to the Jesus Freak, who dragged a huge wooden cross through the neighbourhood. He’d latch on to anyone who said hello, and they’d be stuck listening to him go on about God for hours. If you ignored them, though, the Jesus Freak and Balcony Lady were like anyone else.

The night before, Minna and I had suggested wearing our red tops. Come on, it’ll be fun. But Jasse had squirmed, said I dunno, we can’t embarrass ourselves on our first day. Minna and I had just shrugged when she said that. It wasn’t a big deal. We hardly ever dressed alike, only when something special happened. Here come the three musketeers, our teachers would say then.

Minna, whose siblings were so old that they’d already left home, said that we were probably triplets who got separated at birth. Jasse thought that was dumb, given how different we all looked, but I could see how happy it made her whenever Minna said it. She only had a brother, and she’d always wanted a sister.

Sometimes, even though I’d only known them since year three, I thought I liked them more than my real sis. Jasse and Minna had been friends since the day they were born – or so their mums said, anyway. Jasse had screamed until she was blue in the face, upsetting all the other babies on the ward. Sometimes I got jealous when we sat at the kitchen table and their parents talked about baby Minna and baby Jasse.

I tugged at my blue sweater. The bra Jasse had given me was uncomfortable. There was a hole in it, and the underwire kept coming out and digging into my skin. It was also way too big, so I’d tried to pad out the cups with kitchen roll. I didn’t dare ask Mum if I could get a new bra of my own. We never talked about that kind of thing.

Minna had neatly combed her hair. I felt bad for thinking it, but I thought she looked like an old woman. Jasse was wearing a new grey top. It stopped just above the waist of her trousers, which meant you could see her stomach whenever she moved. We usually only showed our stomachs on the beach.

‘Should we get going, then?’ asked Minna.

No one moved.

‘Swear we’ll stick together?’ said Jasse.

‘Yeah, ’course we will,’ I said.

‘What else would we do?’ asked Minna.

The wind tugged at our hair as we cycled. Minna and Jasse rode ahead of me, both standing up to pedal. I studied them from behind. They were everything I wasn’t, and that’s why I loved them. I wondered if Minna and Jasse also thought of us as a pride of lions. Prides of lions hunt antelope and hate girls who hate the wind. Girls like that always got stroppy because it messed up their hair, and we weren’t girls like that. Maybe we weren’t even girls.

Maybe we were just lions.

We got off our bikes at the same time. Minna’s handlebars had been polished, and the blue metal shimmered like the snow in March. I don’t know how many times I’d perched on those handlebars while Jasse rode on the pannier rack. Minna has the strongest thigh muscles out of all of us, that’s why she did the pedalling. Once, Jasse’s mum drove past us, and she stopped the car, wound down the window and shouted Get off there right now! What you’re doing is so dangerous! Jasse’s mum is a nurse, and she’s seen plenty of cracked skulls in A&E. We did as we were told, then got straight back on as soon as she’d driven off. Screamed aaah on the biggest bends. Still, I was never scared, because it was Minna steering.

‘Am I all sweaty?’ asked Jasse, holding up both arms. There were two dark patches.

‘Nah,’ Minna and I said.

There was no point telling the truth; we’d already arrived. The school was a big L-shaped building in the middle of Bergnäset, all brown brick and dark windows. There were three big football fields nearby. We’d spent as much time hanging out there as at any of our houses.

‘Shall we go in?’ asked Minna.

The canteen glared at us. The windows would eat us alive if we got too close. The minute we set foot inside, the fun would be over. No one had ever come out and said it, but Jasse had been nagging us all summer. In year seven, we can’t do this. In year seven, we have to do that. Minna left the room whenever she got going, but I listened to every word. The problem was that we loved our games. Minna had an old doll’s house in the basement, and we moved the furniture around, put the dolls on top of one another so that they could make out. Death to anyone who blabbed.

‘OK, let’s go in,’ said Jasse.

We locked our bikes, dropped the keys into our pockets and walked towards the school without another word. A couple of girls from our old class were standing up ahead. In the very beginning, they had wanted to be one of us, but we wanted the opposite. Since you couldn’t say no to anyone in junior school, we said sure, you can come too. But we were always super boring and quiet, and in the end they lost interest.

Jasse took the lead, but she turned around before she made her way inside.

‘Don’t embarrass yourselves.’

She opened the door without waiting for our reaction. Minna’s hand brushed mine.

‘What d’you mean, don’t embarrass yourselves?’

Jasse was several metres ahead of us. She tugged at her jeans before heading in to assembly.

‘Why would we embarrass ourselves?’ asked Minna. ‘We never embarrass ourselves.’

I didn’t have an answer for her, but at the same time I knew: it wasn’t me Jasse meant.

There were people everywhere. The air in the canteen was stuffy, and I found myself thinking about anthills. Most of the boys had caps on. Some looked like Jasse’s big brother, but others were shorter than me. Almost all the girls were wearing makeup and were dressed in black, white or grey.

I regretted putting on my pale blue sweater that morning. Mum had bought it a few days earlier, said this colour really suits you, it brings out the sky blue in your eyes. But my eyes weren’t sky blue, they were grey. I should have been wearing grey too. From the corner of one eye, I saw Minna chewing on her hair. It was something she’d been doing since preschool. Jasse thought it was gross, but she was used to Minna always having one spiky wet lock.

We sat down in the middle of the room. I could see classmates from our old school all around us. They nodded or waved, and I nodded or waved back. All of them were nice, I just couldn’t be bothered with any of them. They mostly got in the way. Sighing loudly because all we wanted to do was play football during break. But that was because we were going to be the best! Or Minna was, anyway. I’d never asked Jasse or Minna, but when I joined their class it felt like they’d been waiting for me without realising it. When you arrived, Jasse would sometimes say, everything that was boring became fun again.

A guy with tobacco on his teeth yelled did you hear that Moe fucked up his liver from drinking? He grinned when the others sighed. Everyone around us was on their phones, the way they always were, but ours were still in our pockets. We just ignored them most of the time, found them too stressful. Besides, we had each other, which meant ignoring them was easy. My sis said that was why we were so happy. The rest of us just lie there in bed, scrolling and feeling like crap.

Three bored-looking girls dressed in black were standing up against one wall. All of them were made-up. Two were wearing lipstick and dark lip liner, plus heavy, winged eyeliner. Their clothes hugged their thighs and breasts, as though they had been made specially for them. Their eyes scanned the canteen as they pushed back each other’s hair and whispered. I shivered, could almost feel their light fingers on my throat. The girls were all in black, but it was like there was some kind of glow around them. A light you wanted to be near, but also knew you should be wary of. Everyone who walked past kept their arms pressed to their sides or gave them a wide berth.

‘Who are they?’

Jasse took it for granted that I had noticed them.

‘Dunno,’ I said.

They looked in our direction. I folded my arms, both for something to do and to hide my top and my tiny boobs. But it wasn’t me they were looking at. They were studying Jasse’s face as they whispered. As though they were ranking her. Once they were done, the girls smiled at one another. Jasse was easily an A. I waited for them to rank me too, but they had already moved on.

‘They’re staring at someone else now,’ I said.

Jasse fluffed up her hair.

‘How’d they look?’

‘They... They just... What d’you mean?’

‘Did they look happy?’

I didn’t want to lie to Jasse, but I didn’t want to tell the truth either.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

Jasse mumbled something I didn’t catch, then she realised that they had actually noticed her.

‘What about you?’ she asked.

‘Huh?’

‘Did they see you?’

‘Yeah.’

Minna leaned over my knee and asked why we were whispering so much. Said she was trying to hear what the head teacher was saying. Jasse pressed a finger to her lips and shushed her, as though it was Minna who was being noisy. We all stopped talking and turned to the head teacher. New term, blah blah blah. New memories, blah blah blah. New friendships, blah blah blah. A window opened, and a girl in a hoodie hauled herself out over the ledge. Where’s Zara going? voices around us asked. Maybe she’s the new Nils, said someone. Y’know, the guy who went home and never came back. The head teacher cleared her throat. She was wearing so much makeup that it seemed like an effort to smile.

When we left the canteen, Jasse tugged on my top. Minna kept walking, hadn’t noticed us stop. She was shorter than everyone else, but I could see her so clearly. Her red hair shone among all the dark sweaters and jackets.

‘They looked at us,’ said Jasse. ‘Do you know what that means?’

I shook my head.

‘I can feel it, this means something. It’s a sign. Maybe I’m psychic?’

‘Huh?’

Jasse grinned. ‘This is it.’