Page 3 of Maybe Tomorrow

Judith waved back and mimed at Alice to eat her toast. She looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen. She shivered in the cool breeze. No sign of a storm yet.

Whitby Community College, 12:30pm

Alice came out of her English class and was hit by a wall of sunshine streaming through the windows. She looked through the window at the still air outside, the tall trees, their leaves turning brown, and a brilliant blue sky. Where was this storm her mother had been talking about? She was the only one who’d turned up at college wearing a waterproof coat and carrying an umbrella. It’s not as if the other students needed an excuse to make fun of her. Now, she was providing them with material.

She had forty-five minutes until her next lesson and headed for the canteen. The usual array of food was waiting for her. There was a thick meaty soup, chips, lasagne, and a large vat of baked beans, fish fingers and beef burgers to choose from, and those pork sausages sizzling away under the heat lamp looked delicious.

Behind her, she heard sniggering. She turned slightly and saw Rosie Clegg and her crew of beautiful people looking her way, chattering in hushed tones. They were probably laying bets about what she was going to order. Alice’s stomach rumbled. She was hungry. She wanted chips. She wanted sausages and a mound of baked beans. She wanted white bread, thickly buttered to make a chip butty with and dip into the bean juice. She wanted apple crumble and custard for afters. But she moved along the row, passed the fatty foods and picked up a tuna sandwich on brown bread, an apple and a banana. It wouldn’t fill her, but it would silence her tormenters.

She paid for her lunch and took her usual seat in the corner where she took a dog-eared copy ofThe Secret Gardenout of her satchel and opened it up.

Her satchel was heavy today. It always was on a Monday. Monday was library day. She finished college at two o’clock, her earliest finish, and on her way home, she called into the local library to exchange the books she’d borrowed last Monday and check out another five or six to see her over the week and weekend. She loved books. She lived for books and her ideal job would be to work in a library one day.

Half an hour later, she closed the book. She’d readThe Secret Gardenbefore, many times, but it was a story she loved and she continued to borrow it on a regular basis. Her tray was empty but for the banana peel and the crusts of her sandwich. She never ate crusts. She was still hungry and would love to have gone back for a chip butty or a couple of bars of chocolate, but Rosie Clegg and her bitches were still in the canteen, laughing loudly and flicking their hair back, eyeing up the boys as they came in from the rugby field in their muddy kits, and shooting daggers at Alice if she caught their eye.

Alice placed the book in her bag, put her coat on and left the table. She had to walk past Rosie Clegg to leave and braced herself for the usual jibes about her weight. Her mother told her to ignore them. They were just words and words couldn’t hurt her. She was wrong. They did hurt.

‘Alice.’ Rosie grabbed Alice by the arm as she walked past. ‘Is everything all right?’ She seemed genuinely concerned.

Alice looked at Rosie, took in the smooth skin, the neat hair, the touch of make-up on her lips and eyes. She glanced to her friends surrounding the table. They were smiling at her, struggling to stifle their giggles.

‘Fine. Thanks.’

‘I just wondered if you were poorly or something.’

Alice frowned. ‘No. I’m fine.’

‘Oh good. I’ve got a leftover sausage here. Would you like it?’

A couple of the girls around the table started laughing.

‘No. Thank you,’ Alice said. She pulled herself free from Rosie’s grip and headed for the door. She tried to ignore the grunting sounds from behind, but she couldn’t, and she was sure she heard one of them comment on her jumper. She closed her coat tightly around her knitted red and black jumper. She’d made it herself. She’d been building up to making her own clothes, having knitted a few doilies, scarves, and gloves, which were trickier than she first thought. The jumper was her first item of clothing for herself, and she was proud of it. Was.

She hated Rosie Clegg and her ilk.

Whitby Library, 2:30pm

Alice’s mum had been right. A storm was coming.

Alice left the college at two o’clock to find a dark sky overheard, huge raindrops falling, and a stiff wind blowing. There was electricity in the air, she could feel it. Tonight was going to be a wild night with heavy rain, hurricane-strength winds, thunder and lightning, and she’d be tucked up in bed with a hot chocolate and a good book. She hoped the library hadWuthering Heightsback in. That was the perfect book to read in a storm.

She ran for the bus, knowing that it came at 2:05pm and got to the stop just in time as the bus turned the corner. She jumped on, showed her pass, and went to sit down. As the bus passed the college, she saw Rosie Clegg and two of her friends struggling with an umbrella. It had blown inside out; they were already soaked, and their tiny skirts and short jumpers were no match for the autumnal weather. Alice smiled to herself. It was a small victory, and she knew her mum would berate her for laughing, but she felt she owed it to herself to revel in their misfortune.

The journey to the library took twenty minutes, followed by a five-minute walk, which Alice did in record time to get out of the oncoming storm.

‘Hello Alice. Give me your coat and I’ll hang it up.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Wilkinson.’

She’d been told on more than one occasion to call her Jane, but Alice couldn’t call a grown-up by their first name. It didn’t seem right.

Alice was known by name by all the staff in the library. She’d been coming here since she was a young child and her love of reading had never waned. In fact, it grew stronger with each passing year.

Mrs Wilkinson took Alice’s coat and took it into the staff room to hang it by the radiator.

Alice smoothed her hair down as she approached the counter.

Standing behind the counter, gazing out of the window at the storm, was Anthony Winstanley. He’d been working in the library for as long as Alice could remember. He was a giant of a man, well over six feet tall and big, too. He was always pleased to see Alice and tried to get her to read a few of his favourite comic books, but Alice’s mum said they weren’t proper books. She enjoyed listening to the stories he told her, though.Spider-Mansounded fun.