“I come out once a week to check on them. There’s a pregnant doe I’m keeping an eye on. Or trying to.”
“Oh.” Now I feel bad for snapping.
I look up at Niamh again. She’s sitting in the grass with her legs bent in front of her, and her arms resting on her knees. She left her white doctor’s jacket in the car, and she’s got on heavy tan trousers and a dark green T-shirt. Plus tortoise-framed, green-tinted sunglasses that are very nearly fashionable. She’s staring out in the direction of Watford. Maybe she can see it.
“It’s always strange coming back here,” she says. “It makes me feel like I’m going back to school.”
“Yeah . . .”
“You must miss it,” she says.
I bark out a laugh. “No.Do you?”
“No. But I wasn’t . . .” She glances over at me.
I scowl back at her. “You weren’t what?”
“You know . . .”
“I don’t.”
Niamh shrugs and looks away. “Agatha Wellbelove.”
“What doesthatmean?”
“Oh, come on.” She shifts her sunglasses to the top of her head. “You must know . . .”
“Enlighten me.”
“Itmeans,” she says disdainfully, “that the whole school revolved around you and your friends.”
I lean towards her. “It didnot.And how would you even know? We weren’t in school together.”
“I’m only three years older than you, Agatha.”
Is that true? Could Niamh have already made that many bad skin-care choices? I lean back against the tree, folding my arms, and staring at her. “Did we really play lacrosse together?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember playinglacrosse. . .” I say sharply.
“Well, I was on the team, three years ahead of you.” She frowns at me. “Why areyouacting offended? You’re the one who doesn’t rememberme.”
“I didn’t pay attention to the upper years.”
Niamh tips up her chin and laughs unpleasantly. “Did you pay attention toanyone?”
That’s when I see it. “Nicks and Slick, I do know you!”
She puts her sunglasses back on. “I’ve been telling you that you do.”
“Snakesalive.What happened to you?”
“What?” She looks surprised and offended, and this time, I can’t blame her.
I try to backtrack—“I mean . . .”
Niamh . . . Niamh isBrody.I didn’t even know Brody had a first name. (I mean,of courseBrody had a first name.) The girls my age were afraid to speak to her. She was our best attacker. Six foot one, built like a brick wall. Crowley, her thighs were a wonder—you could serveteaon them. And she had this short, platinum-blond hair, all quiffed up like Niall Horan.
