The Line
Dannie, holding Barbie, felt silly being the teacher, but she didn’t argue.
Amy, Kylie and Jade were students in the class, their Bratz dolls whispering to each other.
“Quiet down, girls,” Dannie said, bopping her Barbie at the Bratz, “today we’re looking at – the Greeks”
Amy’s Brat made huge farting noise and the others giggled
“Crystal! That’s enough... can we play something else?” Dannie asked putting the Barbie down
“Nooo!” whined Kylie, whose house it was
“This is fun, you’re a good teacher!” said Jade, still giggling
“Anyway, my Brat is brand new, I haven’t played with her yet” said Amy
“I don’t like being teacher,” said Dannie
“Why not, it’s the one with all the power!” said Amy
Dannie knew that wasn’t true. If there was any power in being teacher, Kylie would be doing it
“Why did you bring your Barbie if you’re not playing?” demanded Kylie crossly
“You didn’t say what we were playing!” argued Dannie, getting more annoyed
“But you’ve got a Barbie, it’s twice as big as ours, and it looks like a grown-up, it doesn’t look like – like ours”
They’d tried Mothers and Daughters, but Dannie hadn’t liked that either. Kids don’t play with adults, so it was hard keeping Dannie’s Barbie in a game.
They played with Kylie’s My Little Ponies instead, which she didn’t like because they used to be her oldest sister’s and some of them were really old.
Dannie waited until after lunch (jam-and-crisp sandwiches and coke) to get them outside. Kylie hated getting dirty but the other two didn’t mind, so they could manage that better than playing with toys, when Kylie always made herself boss.
“Pirates!” Dannie cried from up the tree
“Where?” called Jade, who loved these games
“From the sea” snapped Kylie, sitting on a pink, plastic chair under the tree
“No, from the forest!” cried Dannie, “We need weapons!”
“From what?” asked Kylie, when Dannie had got down
“You can make them,” said Jade, picking up a large stick, Kylie wrinkled her nose
“Where’s the treasure?” asked Amy, before Kylie could say anything
“In the cave,” said Dannie, pointing at Kylie’s tiny Wendy House, “but they have a map!”
“Why do they have a map if you just put it there?” Kylie asked irritably
Dannie paused; she had just put the treasure in there in the game, “OK, just pretend my great-grandmother put it there!”
“No, you can’t do that,” said Kylie, “you can’t change it like that”
We stole the treasure back from the pirates, said Dannie’s brain
“OK, OK, just pretend...”
“You can’t change it,” said Amy, “let’s play something else”
“No, no, I’ve got an idea!” protested Dannie, seeing the move back inside looming
“Let’s play on the Wii!” crowed Kylie and they trooped back inside
Dannie wasn’t allowed Nintendo or games consoles because her parents said she spent too much time watching TV anyway, she should play outside more.
She sat and failed miserably at Mario Cart and was even worse at Rock Band, so she sat and drew the game she’d wanted to play outside in comic strips.
“Is Dan OK?” asked Jade quietly as they played Rock Band, looking at her sideways from her guitar
“She’s in a sulk” said Kylie, on the drums
“I just don’t play that very well,” said Dannie coldly, “so I’m drawing”
“Oh, sor-ry” said Kylie
Dannie wanted to text her mum and ask to go home. She’d had a feeling this would happen, Kylie was bossy and liked everything that, as Dannie could see, were clean, and if it cost more money than other kids’ toys than she liked them even more. She loved being special.
Dannie spent a lot of time outside, her parents had bought a house with a huge garden, and their house was a mansion but had needed work done so it was the same price as a normal house inside town. Everyone loved coming over, she played football with the boys and long pretend games with the girls, and Kylie didn’t like stuff like that.
At school, Kylie and the others often brought their Bratz doll in and they played that all lunchtime, which left Dannie with a couple of the other girls she didn’t talk to very much because they were either weird, like Jenny, or really into books, like Hayley, and they didn’t manage to make any games work. It wasn’t so bad when Jenny didn’t try to make them best friends afterwards.
Dannie didn’t have a best friend. She liked Amy and Jade, and she liked some of the boys as well, and the other girls came and went and then came back again, there was another group that they didn’t talk with much, since last year Kylie and Livvy had a huge argument and mums got involved, and now they don’t talk to each other.
Dannie hadn’t cared what it was about – she’d played football all that time.
If Amy and Jade went over to Livvy’s side, Dannie would have been happier, Livvy was nicer than Kylie. She didn’t have to be the centre of attention; she just had to win an argument and didn’t like being told to do something instead of being asked.
Dannie’s mum often said about her sister, Dannie’s aunt, that she’d happily sell the whole family if it would make her Prime Minister. Dannie felt Kylie would sell anything to rule everyone’s minds, make them into Kylie-Bots. She’d drawn a comic strip about it. The hero (Daniel) had been the One who could resist being made into one and remade the world after it had been made completely taken over, and everyone banned the Wii forever.
A game Dannie played on her own was that she was in a group of people who lived in the forest, they hunted, traded, sometimes stole things, but they were... like a brotherhood, or a family, they were bonded and they stayed together, and they treated each other properly.
Dannie played some games she didn’t like and learned the skipping-rope chants, and managed to stay on the other side of something she mentally called ‘Jenny’s Line’. Jenny had no friends for no reason anyone could say, Jenny had even asked some of the girls including Dannie why they didn’t like her
“You’re just weird,” said Dannie, but Jenny nodded as if she knew that and wanted the rest of the answer, but Dannie didn’t have more, “... like, you play Dungeons and Dragons all the time, and stuff”
It wasn’t an answer, and Jenny had given up trying to get one. She stayed on her own and talked to herself, which was sad, but to be friends with her would be dangerous, even Jenny knew that.
So Dannie stayed on the popular side of the line and stayed with the two girls she liked best when Kylie wasn’t around.
Last week had been brilliant because Kylie was ill, and they played whatever they liked, they even went and played with Livvy’s group. Everyone had been a bit sad when Kylie came back. They knew if they went to Livvy’s group, Kylie would be on her own, and she would come to get them back, and it looked like it could go really bad that way, so they stayed with her.
Today, they were playing with their Bratz again, and so Dannie finally got up and walked away. Whatever the risk, she had had enough of this.
“Where are you going?” asked Amy, looking up from brushing her doll’s hair
“I’m going to play with Livvy” said Dannie as if this was normal
“No! You’re not – if you do,” Kylie started again when Dannie looked at her, “you won’t be my friend anymore!”
“OK, I don’t think we were friends anyway” said Dannie
“Dannie!” gasped Jade, “She’s let you come round her house and play, and you could have joined in!”
“I can’t play with her stuff because I don’t know how and then you all laugh at me!” argued Dannie, feeling a strange, light feeling, “And she doesn’t like my games because she might get a bit dirty, but Livvie doesn’t mind! Anyway, I think Bratz look ugly, their heads look like rugby balls!”
“Dannie, please don’t,” said Amy, who had said in secret that she was bored with Wii and didn’t like Bratz very much either, “we can play with something else!”
“Don’t,” said Kylie coldly, “if she wants to go, then let her”
“We don’t have to play with Bratz and Rock Band!” Jade shot back, “We could play with other stuff, you know Dannie has these wooden toy sets, Four-in-a-Row and Jenga and stuff”
“Those are boring,” Kylie declared, turning back to her doll, “but if you want to go with her, you can”
“You know we can’t,” shouted Dannie, “we have to stay with you because if we don’t then you don’t have anyone, and then you’ll come to Livvy’s gang and make everything... stupid!”
“You don’t have to stay with me, I’m not asking you!” snarled Kylie, getting up
It was very strange. Dannie could see exactly what was going on. Normally she could anyway but she didn’t want to do anything about it, even if she thought she might like to.
“You’re asking them to, though. You always want them to do what you want, and if they don’t, you say ‘You can’t come round my house’, and then steal their rubbers or something so they have to borrow yours because you always sit next to them”
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