4. A Spoonful of Shame

Maths class was boring. Spanish was too easy. Zandra chatted with her friends a little in between doing their classwork, but she couldn't really tell them why she was upset without admitting her problem; and that was something she never intended to do.

After what seemed like an eternity, the bell rang to announce the mass charge for the cafeteria, where Zandra and Dell managed to find a small table in the corner, out of sight from most of the room.

"Your brother is a weirdo," Dell said, with an over-the-top dramatic flare that only made Zandra giggle. Dell's hair was perpetually dyed in the colours of different pride flags, changing to a new one every couple of weeks, and her leather jacket with hot pink logos all over was certainly well outside the uniform guidelines, so for her to describe anyone as weird seemed like the height of irony. On the other hand, if you took 'weirdo' to mean 'creepy', the description fit Jay to a T.

"Tell me about it," Zandra sighed. "He's on this whole kick of calling me a baby again, won't let up about it." To reinforce her point, she lifted her packed lunch out of her bag. A number of indistinct shapes were bundled inside a folded paper bag, with Disney stickers holding the edge down. The words 'Baby Zan' were written on the outside in big, friendly letters. When Jay had given it to her that morning, Zandra had been ashamed and hated the thought of anyone else seeing it. But now, she realised, it was better to laugh at the kind of loser who had written it than to pretend it said anything about her.

"Wow," Dell gasped. "That is extra special!"

"Yeah, tell me about it. Hey, you said he was weird. Did he do something else?"

"He's sitting on a park bench eating his lunch. Right outside the school. Think he's supposed to be keeping an eye on you or something. Maybe he wants to see your expression if you're mad about the lunch."

"I guess. But I saw it this morning, and I didn't say anything. It's only embarrassing for the guy who wrote it. Unless, like, you're one of the popular girls who thinks eating a bag lunch is beneath them, but who cares what they think?"

"Right," Dell said, pouting slightly. "Silly boys and their silly–" Then she turned her head, following as their friend Sabine walked towards them. Her blonde hair bobbed with every stride, and but the athletic girl's usual vivacity was replaced by a hint of exasperation.

"Ugh," she said as she arrived, tossing her gym bag on the floor next to their table. "Why are men so childish?"

"Sean?" Zandra asked, raising an eyebrow. When Sabine had a problem, there was usually a fifty-fifty chance that some random jock she barely even knew was trying to impress her, or that her twin brother had done something stupid again.

"Sean," Sabine confirmed, and then looked down at the table. It was a small one, with space for one chair on each side. The third edge faced out into the room, but a quick scan of the rest of the cafeteria didn't reveal any free chairs. "Oh, guess I should have arrived earlier. You two want to–"

"Oh, we can make space," Dell said, and quickly sprang into action. With a mischievous grin, she scooped up Zandra, who yelped in surprise, and placed her gently in her lap. Zandra instinctively squirmed as she found herself unexpectedly close to her friend, but more impressed that Dell had managed to lift her. A short while ago, she would have thought that only Sabine had the strength to do that. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, and she could acknowledge that she couldn't see any other way to fit three friends onto two chairs.

Sabine, initially bewildered by the unconventional solution, couldn't help but laugh at the sight of Dell cradling Zandra like a precious cargo. Still, it made a space, so she quickly sat down in the seat that Zandra had so recently been using.

"Dell, you're crazy," she said, shaking her head in amusement.

"What can I say?" Dell replied with a shrug. "I'm always up for a challenge."

"Sean's such a baby," Sabine said with a resigned shrug. She put her own lunch down; a large plate with two cafeteria baked potatoes and heaps of veggies. "I honestly think he's…" And then the words stopped as she poked curiously at the packed lunch in front of her, with all its Disney regalia. "Uhh…"

"That's mine," Zandra said, blushing as brightly as before as before. "Jay made it, while I was busy… helping Mum with something."

"Okay," Sabine said, shrugging again and handing the 'Baby Zan' lunch across the table. "Brothers can be such a pain, right? I mean, Sean's asking me for help. He seems to assume I'm the responsible one, and I can tell there's something he feels guilty about. Something that he thinks is pretty bad, but he's not sure."

"Probably got the neighbour's chihuahua drunk or something," Dell guessed. "You know what he's like when Adam or Keller put an idea in his head."

"Yeah. He'll be even worse with Jay back in town, I guess. He idolises your brother Zan, and that's kind of scary. But he's asking me questions like, should he apologise, or should he turn in the guy who put him up to this, or when's the right time to tell somebody about what he's done. But I haven't got an answer, have I? Because he's talking like 'somebody did a thing to somebody else, and I taught him how to change it so that he can make him do a different thing, and the first thing might be worse than the second thing, but the person doesn't know, and I can't tell if it's working because the person hasn't said…'. And I'm like this doesn't mean anything. I don't know which person is which, or what he's actually done. He's trying not to give any details until he knows whether confessing is the right thing to do or not, because he doesn't want to get the person in trouble. So he wants me to give moral advice when every single detail he can give is 'somebody', 'something', or 'it depends'."

"Man, that sucks," Dell said. "Hopefully he'll sort it out himself. Or one of the persons will come and yell at him. Heck, if it's really a big deal we'll hear about it sooner or later. We should just enjoy ourselves while we can. Nice weather, good food, good friends, a cute little baby in my lap."

She was expecting Zandra to duck away, to blush, or to complain that she wasn't a baby. She wouldn't be angry about it; they were close enough to joke and know that there was no ill intent. But this time Zandra didn't say a word. In fact, she'd been silent for an unusual length of time, staring into the top of her bag lunch now she had it open. And the tension in her body told Dell right away that Zan couldn't find the words to express her feelings; but that her response when she finished processing what she could see was likely to involve running outside and screaming or throwing things at her own idiot brother. It was disturbing to watch her as an anger deep inside slowly came to the boil.

"What's wrong, Zan?" Sabine asked, and saw Dell putting one arm loosely around her friend's waist. It was clear that this was something they would have to help Zandra with, and both of them were sure that they weren't going to let her face it alone.

Zandra clenched her fist around the top of the bag, gripping so hard that her hand started to shake. Her friends could both tell how unhealthy that was; and she would probably have thought the same if she'd been thinking at all.

"Zan!" Sabine said, trying to snap her out of the mixture of shock and rage. Dell took a more direct approach, taking advantage of Zandra's position on her lap to start tickling the girl. It was a weird choice, and Sabine could see so many ways that could go wrong; but this time it might have been the right choice, as Zandra writhed and shifted position, trying to get away from the tickling hands.

"Sto–ooop!" she gasped, in between giggled, and then Dell's hands ceased their movement.

"Now we've got your attention back," Dell said, "how about you tell us what's wrong. We're your friends, remember? And if there's something upsetting one of us. We all deal with it."

Zandra shivered, trying to get her breath back. And then she thought about what she was going to say. She looked at the bag between her hands again, and the shock she had felt when she'd opened it. She shouldn't have been surprised, she knew. Because Jay was a jerk, and he always took his jokes too far. But somehow she'd looked at the writing, and the stickers, and she'd thought that was all of it.

"I trusted him," she said slowly. "I thought he might make me lunch once, especially when Mum trusted him. The food might just be an excuse to get this bag into school, where anybody might see it. I didn't even bring my cafeteria card."

"Is the food not good?" Sabine asked, and Zandra couldn't bring herself to say any more. She opened the bag instead, tearing down its side to show what was inside.

First, it became clear that the round shape which dominated the shape of the bag wasn't cola. It was a baby bottle, filled with milk. It was only a small bottle, though, sized for a little kid. Beneath it, the round shape with irregular ridges was continued with what turned out to be a jar of Baby Delights chicken salad; a brown paste that Zandra was sure she couldn't bring herself to eat. The crinkly shape she'd assumed would be a bag of chips turned out to be a little pouch of grapes and mandarin segments, with more logos on the pouch to make it clear that it was intended to be a healthy snack for a baby. And the bulk of the pack, approximately rectangular, wasn't a couple of sandwiches stacked in halves either. It was a mini pack of baby wipes, bulky but with no nutritional value. Spread out like that, there seemed to be nothing for Zandra. A half dozen pieces of fruit wouldn't fill her up ready for the afternoon.

"What an asshole!" Sabine snapped. "He's done that just to cause problems. Assuming it's Jay, of course."

Zandra's hands trembled, pulling off a piece of the lunch bag and crumpling it into a ball. "I'm going to kill him!" She moved to stand up, ready to storm outside and let her fury rain down on Jay. But Dell tightened her grip around Zandra's waist. "Whoa, hold on feisty pants. That's exactly what he wants – to get a reaction out of you."

Sabine nodded, putting a gentle hand on Zandra's shoulder. "She's right. He's trying to get under your skin. Don't give him the satisfaction."

"So I'm just supposed to let him humiliate me like this?" Zandra scowled, every muscle tense. "I can't just ignore it!"

"No, we're going to deal with this. But smart, not reactionary." Dell gave a sly smile. "I think I see an opportunity to show him how it feels, being treated like a baby. But first, we need to make sure my growing girl gets fed. Can't scheme on an empty stomach, right?"

"Yeah," Sabine said. "I'm sure we've got enough food for three proper lunches between them. And Dell's right, we'll figure something out. Don't waste your energy on Jay – he wants you mad. Take the high road."

Zandra sighed, the fight going out of her. As frustrating as it was, she knew her friends were right. She wouldn't give Jay the explosion he likely hoped for. "Fine. But I hope this idea's a good one."

"Oh, it will be." Dell's eyes glinted. "Let's just enjoy lunch first. We can scheme while our food settles." She playfully tapped Zandra's belly. "Don't need my girl getting cramps when there's mischief to plan!"