Rugby Club Disco Wednesday 29 March
Tracey’s Game: Navigating Teenage Rivalries
Tracey McAdam wasn’t the sort of girl you excluded without consequence. Right now she felt like the kid who couldn’t ski, trying to follow the ones who’d been out on the slopes every winter. She wasn’t far wrong. Robbie and Kizzy had ambitions to make it out onto the black runs that Easter holiday, while Tracey was on the nursery slopes, still snowploughing.
At the Rugby Club disco, she’d watched Robbie Foster execute his ridiculous romantic assault course—bouncing from Cece to Diana to Julie-Anne to Donna like a skier tackling a mogul field on his first day back. But it wasn’t his failure that intrigued her. It was the pattern. The way he kept glancing back to the shadows where Kizzy lingered, dishing out silent instructions. There was something in her pocket they both kept consulting. A system. A plan.
Tracey wanted that kind of agency. With boys, of course. She couldn’t hear what was said. Getting close enough to see would’ve given her game away. So she waited. Observed.
And when Robbie and Kizzy left the disco, Tracey followed—not out of desperation, but principle. She ducked behind hedges, crouched under a lilac bush, crossed the road when safe. When the hallway light blinked on at the Foster house, she took position in the dark garden across from it. The kitchen glowed yellow. Tracey held her breath.
Through the window, she saw it: Kizzy unfolding the Form Photo. Eastfield High Upper Vth, September 1977. Tracey remembered that day. She’d looked for Kizzy and Momo during the setup. They’d been up to something. She could tell. She’d wanted in. They hadn’t let her.
She scanned the image from her position. Ruth: first row, not next to Momo. Suspicious. They were inseparable. The adopted girl—Becky?—absent entirely. Some rumour about not being identifiable by her dad in a police lineup or some such. Miss Rowbotham had insisted on including that German exchange student. For what? A week of classes? Still made the photo.
The light went out. Tracey blinked. It was her form. Seventeen girls. Thirteen, maybe fourteen in the photo. She didn’t have a copy. Didn’t want one. Why would you save a horror story?
As she returned to the North Road, she checked the time. Buses still running. She’d head to the High Street.
She thought about the girls Robbie had danced with. What boxes did they tick? Cece Noble: elegance, poise, wit. Julie-Anne: pre-teen flame, now cold penpal. Diana: bypassed. Donna: fourth choice. Helen? Too young. Gone by ten.
Maybe that was it. Tracey was younger than the others. Six months could be a canyon at this age. But Helen had been Cece’s swap, Tracey reckoned. She could picture Cece placing Helen in front of Robbie like a decoy, then fleeing to the bathroom.
That was it.
Kizzy was ranking the girls. Glorious Cece Noble: number one. Tracey McAdam? Probably last. If she was on the list at all.
Her jaw set.
Fine, then.
If it was a game, she could play too.
She’d turn heads. She’d get under Robbie’s skin. She’d play him. The thought made her smile.
Her dad, newly minted Northumbrian, once dragged her and Suzi out fly-fishing. Flicking bits of string with a punk bluebottle on the end, pretending it was fun. Rain. Silence. Midges.
It made her laugh now. Punk bluebottle. Maybe that was the key.
You bait the line. Flick it far enough.
Someone always bites.e? Vivienne Westwood bring it on.
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