Monster

4 Jeepers Creepers

I didn’t stop running until I was deep into the Landscape Gardens. I headed straight for the old wooden Wendy House, opened the yellow front door and shut myself in. It was freezing. All I had on was Bob Cratchit’s threadbare shirt and torn trousers.

I’d often wondered what the consequences would be if I’d let the reckless part of my brain decide things for me. The part of my brain that wanted to key the cars of people my dad had fallen out with. The part that wanted to touch boiling hot surfaces. The part that wanted to shout back and swear all the time. The part that wondered what it would be like to punch Clarice Hoon in the face every time she laughed when I tripped over or got a question wrong in French. And now I knew. It felt horrible.

I don’t know how long I’d sat there on one of the little toadstool seats, my head aching like I’d loaned it out as a wrecking ball, a ready-laid plastic dinner service set out beside me, when Maggie Zappa, still in her Mrs Cratchit dress and bonnet, appeared in the doorway.

She sat down on a toadstool on the other side of the table and pulled a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her lacy apron. She took one out and offered it to me.

‘Go on.’

I didn’t think, I just took it with a hand I didn’t realise was shaking. She cupped her hand around the end and held the lighter as I inhaled. Seb had taught me how to do it without coughing. I let the smoke out, slowly. ‘We’re not allowed up here. Mrs Saul-Hudson said it was out of bounds over Christmas.’

‘Why are we up here then?’ said Maggie, blowing smoke through the little square window. ‘You’re gonna get a bruise there.’ She pushed her finger into my forehead. There was a pulsating ache radiating out from where she touched me and I winced.

‘Aargh! God. What the hell did I do?’

‘I wondered how long it would take.’

I looked at her as I exhaled the cigarette smoke, shuddering at the taste. I felt warmer somehow. ‘What?’

‘You and Clarice going at it in the Chapel. I was outside. I watched the whole thing through the window.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what happened. I can’t even remember what I did. My head hurts, I know that.’

‘You beat the crap out of her, that’s what you did, ma petite oignon,’ said Maggie, cigarette dangling from her mouth as she laid up one of the plastic plates with bits and pieces from the box of fake food. ‘Your head hurts because you headbutted her. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s all right. She deserved it. She’s a total dick.’

‘Violence is never the answer.’

‘Sometimes it is,’ said Maggie. ‘Just because her parents own a racehorse and live in Dubai, doesn’t mean she owns the world.’

‘They own the fifth largest racing stables in the world.’

‘So? Some people are born dicks, some achieve dick-ness and some have dick-ness thrust upon them. Isn’t that how the saying goes?’

‘Something like that.’ I sniffed. ‘I just saw red. Nothing could have stopped me. I lost it. I completely lost it.’

‘She deserved it, don’t worry. She’s had that coming for a long time, let me tell you. She was born a dick. There’s no point going over it, wondering if she has Daddy issues or if Mummy never let her drive the Ferrari. Don’t reason with it. You’ve got to show people like that what’s what or they’ll stamp all over you. She won’t give you any more grief now, just you watch.’

‘She said my brother was dead. She said she hoped he died in pain.’

‘Ugh, what a cow!’ said Maggie.

‘I know he’s dead.’

‘You know that for a fact, do you?’

‘No.’ I dragged on the cigarette.

‘Well then. You don’t know jack.’

We stared each other out. Maggie wasn’t going to be first blinker, so I gave in. I didn’t understand what she was doing here. Of all the people to come to my aid, Maggie was the last I’d expected. We’d barely had a conversation since she’d started at Bathory last spring. But here she was, giving me a cigarette and seeing me at my absolute worst, but not judging me. It was just what a friend would do.

‘It’s been nearly a week since he went missing.’

‘Five days I’d heard.’

‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I haven’t slept properly for ages. I’m forgetting chores. There’s misspellings all over today’s diary. I read over my libretto first thing. I couldn’t remember any of my lines for A Christmas Carol. I knew them all last week. I knew all yours last week too.’

‘So? There’s more important things in life than chores and a play everyone’s seen a million times. And the Muppets did it waaaay better anyway.’

‘Yeah, I know, but …’

‘Plus them four Pups they’ve got playing our kids—how come they’re all white? At the very least they ought to be mixed race. It’s totally miscast.’ She dragged on her cigarette until the stem was nearly all ash. ‘Or are they not my kids? Did Bob Cratchitt shag around in the book?’

‘Not as far as I know.’ I came to the end of my cigarette and she offered me another one. ‘I’m going to stink.’

She shrugged. ‘Just stand next to me. I’ll take the blame. I’m like a blame sponge. Ciggy stink. Stolen turkeys. I’m your girl.’

I smiled. ‘So you didn’t steal them then?’

She looked at me. ‘What would I want with three frozen turkeys?’

‘I have no idea.’ We sat in silence, Bob and Mrs Cratchit smoking their cigarettes in silence. Then I just came out with it. ‘I’ve lost out on Head Girl.’

‘What?’ Maggie shrieked. ‘Who says?’

‘No one. But I know I have. I’ve just punched a fellow prefect, for God’s sake. She’s not exactly going to overlook that, is she?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘She might. What with all the stress you’ve been under lately, worrying about your brother and that.’

I shook my head and stared at a woodlouse crawling its way across a plastic apple on top of the cooker. ‘Dianna’s won. I know she has.’

‘Pfaff?’ said Maggie. ‘Great. That means we’re all screwed. Oh well.’ She sighed and lit up another.

‘Oh well?’ I repeated. ‘Do you know how hard I’ve worked to be Head Girl? I’ve been up every morning to help with Pups or unlock outside doors since … forever. Every single hockey, netball or athletics practice I’ve been out there, tidying up balls or polishing javelins because no one else volunteers. I monitor Prep, every night.’ My voice was getting steadily louder.

‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’

‘I’ve got spotless deportment. I miss phone calls home most nights just so I can sit in that study with Saul-Hudson and go through the diary while she sits there on her yogically tightened arse, picking lip hairs and drinking Tesco Finest cocoa while I’m stuck drinking that … value crud she gets for the rest of us!’

‘Whoa, it’s all coming out now,’ Maggie laughed.

‘Sorry,’ I said, breathing deeply, my head falling into my hands. ‘Just can’t believe I’ve fallen at the last sodding fence.’

‘You let it out. It’s good for you,’ said Maggie. ‘‘Bout time you gnashed your teeth a bit. Listen, you don’t know Pffaf’s been given Head Girl, do you?’

‘It’s a pretty safe bet. She called for Dianna to talk to the police with her. Not me. She said I’ve “got enough to deal with”. If that isn’t a massive hint as to who she trusts the most at this school, I don’t know what is.’

‘But you practically run this school, Nash. Saul-Hudson would be lost without you. If she’d rather put that chucklehead in charge of running the place, then let her. She doesn’t deserve your respect. What other headmistress would keep me here as long as she has, eh?’

‘True,’ I said, forcing a small laugh. ‘I’ve failed her big time this week though. She was relying on me.’

‘Why do you want to be Head Girl anyway? All that extra responsibility. All it involves is doing the diary and sorting out pissy little tea rotas and wiping Saul-Hudson’s arse. Let the Golden Snitch deal with all that if that’s what she really wants. I bet your brother doesn’t give a crap.’

I laughed. This much was true.

‘Seb would want you to enjoy yourself, wouldn’t he? You can’t enjoy yourself if you’re constantly trying to impress other people. All that is for when you’re grown up. Now is the time to kick back—at least until you’re eighteen. Then you can start thinking about job prospects and contraception and hatchbacks.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie.’

She blew out a thick cloud of smoke. ‘For what?’

‘For never sticking up for you.’

‘You’ve turned a few blind ones to me, I know you have. So come on, chin up, tits out and let’s go get our God on.’ She gestured towards the open Wendy House window. A line of students had already begun the trek up the path towards the Chapel on the opposite side of the valley.

‘Do you mind if I sit next to you in Prayers?’ I asked her as we stepped out of the Wendy House.

‘Yeah. If I can share your hymn book.’

‘Why where’s yours?’

‘Kinda flame grilled it yesterday. Don’t ask.’

There was a tremendous creak of the pews and everyone stood up to greet Mrs Saul-Hudson, who took her position at her bronze eagle lectern as the organ ceased its hum. I stayed seated throughout.

‘Good morning, girls,’ she boomed, removing a small hair from the lapel of her red suit jacket.

‘Good morning, Mrs Saul-Hudson,’ the assembled pupils all droned back at her, apart from Maggie who preferred ‘Good morning, Mrs Stool-Softener.’ She threw me a look and I smiled, despite myself.

‘That woman literally has no neck,’ Maggie whispered into my ear, at which I burst out laughing.

Mrs Saul-Hudson threw me a look, full to the brim with disappointment.

I sucked my swollen lip again, spotting Regan Matsumoto staring at me from the choir pews at the front. Why was she always staring at me? I could see no evidence of Clarice Hoon or her vile apostles though and Matron hadn’t pitched up either. I figured they were all in Sickbay. Clarice wailing on and on about how I attacked her and pinned her down. The other girls just crying in harmony.

It was as though Maggie had read my mind. She leaned in to me again. ‘I see the Hoon Patrol haven’t rocked up. Probably in Sickbay getting her face reassembled.’

I looked down at the prayer cushion beneath my feet and tried to decipher which Bible story was knitted into the fabric today. Maggie had Noah and the Ark. On the other side of me, Carrie McKernan had Jonah and the Whale. Mine showed a monster. Maybe it wasn’t a monster. Maybe it was the Devil.

‘Girls, before I begin our last assembly of term, there are a couple of grave matters which I must discuss this morning,’ said Mrs Saul-Hudson. Everyone sat to attention, eager to know the fate that had befallen Bathory in the night.

Maggie leaned into me. ‘Bet her husband’s been caught dogging again.’

‘What?’ I said, snapping my head to look at her. ‘He was night-fishing,’ I whispered back.

‘Sure he was.’

Saul-Hudson continued. ‘First of all, I’m sure you have all heard by now that a man very sadly died in the village a few nights ago. There have been some rumours flying about the school regarding the cause of his death. I want you all to be assured that he died as the result of a burglary that went wrong and the perpetrators have been caught, so you are quite safe.’

She smiled. Nobody smiled back.

‘So he didn’t have his guts ripped out by some wild animal and die in agony on his doorstep then?’ said Maggie, leaning into me.

‘Apparently not.’

Saul-Hudson continued. ‘The second matter I must bring to your attention concerns last night’s staff Christmas party. A person, or persons, broke into the kitchens and laced the party food with a toxic substance …’

Maggie leaned in again. ‘Staff toilets take a bit of punishment, did they?’

‘Sssssshhhh!’ I said, bubbles of laughter and fear mingling in my belly.

‘I do not consider this act to be even remotely amusing.’ She scanned us all, daring us with her eyes to laugh or even breathe wrong. ‘I suggest the culprit come and see me after Prayers in my office and tell me privately—’

Maggie’s hand shot up.

Saul-Hudson honed in on her, thinning her frosty eyes. ‘You.’

‘Yes, me,’ Maggie sighed. ‘It was only laxatives though, Mrs Saul-Hudson. Guess you’ll be throwing me out of school now, won’t you?’ She held up her wrists as though a pair of invisible handcuffs were to clamp down on them. But they didn’t. All Mrs Saul-Hudson did was clear her throat and say, ‘See me after Prayers, please. Now, let us pray.’

There was a shuffling and creaking again as every teacher and all the school’s three hundred and four girls arranged their cushions and knelt down to pray for trespassers and daily Hovis.

I clasped my hands and closed my eyes, inhaling the strong atticky smell of the Chapel and the musty old hymn book just beneath my nose. There was a snigger to the right of me.

I opened my eyes and nudged Maggie. ‘You still hell-bent on getting chucked out?’

She nodded.

‘But why?’

Maggie looked at me. ‘Je suis have mes raisons.’

‘… and give us this day our daily bread … I don’t think they’ll expel you for putting Ex-Lax in the cocoa. They didn’t for spray-painting the pony or putting the custard in the minibus.’

‘More’s the pity,’ she said.

‘… the power and the glory … She could put you in the Chiller again.’

‘… forever and ever … Maybe I want to go to the Chiller again.’

Please, please, let Seb be all right. ‘Amen.’

The Chiller was supposed to be the most feared place in the school, but basically it was just the laundry room where teachers sent girls to ‘cool off’, tucked away at the back of the school basement. All the younger kids were afraid of it, but it wasn’t so scary. It was always warm and smelled gorgeously of clean washing. I’d lost track of the amount of times I’d seen Maggie frogmarched down there to serve a time out. But Maggie was afraid of no one and no place. Whenever I’d gone down there to retrieve her for a teacher, she’d just be sitting on top of one of the washing machines, picking her nails or singing.

‘Please be seated,’ said our Head when the prayer was over. And we all were. There followed an end of term lecture about not treating our rooms like hotels, news from the past few months (netball victories, a ‘positive’ visit from the school governors and a new bench donated by one of the trustees—who definitely was not a paedophile) and details about the Christmas Fayre that afternoon; who would be doing what and when. Stallholders would arrive to set up on the Orangery lawns at eleven a.m., the younger ones would be ‘making mince pies’ (folding impetigo into pastry) and the first year Sixth Formers (our class) would be adding finishing touches to the play, which would start in the Hall at three p.m. The candlelit procession through the Landscape Gardens rounded everything off and then the girls could find their parents and go home for Christmas.

And then it came. The dread in my chest was strangulating.

‘And lastly, I have the great pleasure of announcing my new Head Girl, who will take up her post at the beginning of next year. It’s been a very difficult decision, owing to the quality of the candidates I had to choose from, but the girl I’m appointing is kind, considerate, brimming over with focus and dedication. She is accepting and kind to all students and is a keen exponent of fair play. She is also extremely loyal to Bathory and to what we are trying to achieve here.’

She looked directly at me. I, for once, held her gaze.

‘This girl will be your representative, your prefect leader, in loco parentis when there isn’t a member of staff on whom you can call. I am sure you will agree she is the right person for the role. Your new Head Girl is … Dianna Pfaff.’

There was a lengthy pause between the announcement and the beginning of the applause. The girls were shocked. The news about my ‘quite vicious attack on Clarice’ had yet to reach the majority of them, but I could feel eyes on me, looking at me for a reaction.

Maggie stared at me, mouthing a string of choice words. I smiled, a rictus grin, and watched Dianna stride along the aisle towards the lectern, where Saul-Hudson pinned the badge to her cardigan. I clapped along with all the others as she made her way back down the aisle to her pew, badge gleaming.

Dianna passed our pew, flashing us a sanctimonious, paint-stripping smile.

‘Whatever,’ I said, like a bitten apple, feeling itself going bad from the inside. ‘Whatever.’

5 Dead and Breakfast

As I made my way to the Refectory that morning after Prayers, I walked slower than everyone else. I was swept along on the tide of other girls who were all just like me, in the same uniform, just trying to get to the same place, The same. Not special. Not the best. I felt like little pieces of the person I was were flying off behind me never to return. I didn’t care that there was a little dab of Blu-Tack on my sole, sticking to the highly polished parquet every so often. I didn’t care that my tie was slightly askew. And I didn’t care if I was late for breakfast. For once in my life, I did not care.

The Refectory was a large, high room, echoing with the sounds of clinking cutlery, loud chatter and the dishwasher whirring in the kitchen through the hatch. It had a parquet floor and walls decorated with scholarship boards dating back over a hundred years. Some of the Year Tens on my table were playing the game where you picked a name from one of the boards and everyone had to guess which one. They usually honed in on names like Smellie or Windass—the favourites were always Ethel Glasscock from 1947 and Olive Dicks from 1955.

It wasn’t long before I spotted Clarice Hoon, three tables away with all the other prefects. Her left arm was in a sling; her bottom lip was even more swollen than mine. She’d brushed her hair so that a curtain of it fell down across the bashed-up right side of her face, and tried to cover it with make-up, but she hadn’t done a good enough job. I caught details from the girls along my table. She’d fallen. Down the main staircase. Probably drunk. It had been known. Someone was covering for me. I felt a pang of guilt. I took a seat on Table Nine, aka The Rejects Table, and knowing looks all around me as I sat down told me what a huge statement I was making by not sitting with the other prefects.

‘Could you pass the toast, please?’ I called up the table to anyone who was listening and immediately, the toast rack was on its way down.

Maggie eventually scuffed in, socks rumpled down, face like thunder, looking like she’d been heaved through a hedge by her hair. I guessed by her scowl that she hadn’t been expelled. Inwardly, I sighed in relief.

‘Don’t ask,’ she griped, ignoring looks from the other girls and yanking out the chair opposite me.

‘Saul-Hudson still not expelling you then?’ I said, pouring her out some juice. It dripped on the table. I didn’t bother to wipe it up. What a rebel I was becoming. I’d be making headlines in the school magazine at this rate.

Maggie frowned. ‘I’m living in a sea of morons and the only life raft is made from moron trees. Twenty Blue Tickets, an hour in the Chiller and a loooong lecture about why I “mustn’t break in to Sickbay and steal laxatives”. What’s it gonna take to get kicked out of this dump?’

‘They’ll only send you to another school if you get kicked out of this one. Maybe a worse one.’

‘There isn’t a worse one,’ she said, looking like she meant it.

Regan Matsumoto sat down at the end of our table. As quiet as a mouse yet as noticeable as a fart, nobody liked Regan though nobody quite knew why. It was just one of those innate things, like in the wild when mother animals reject the offspring with health defects. We’d all rejected Regan. Picked her last for team sports. Left her to wander the playing fields alone at break to identify insects and talk to people who weren’t there. All I really knew about her was that her parents had won money on the EuroMillions and were now so loaded they didn’t work, just took holidays. But they never took Regan with them.

A clickety clack on the polished parquet tiles signalled the arrival of Dianna Pfaff, our sparkling new Head Girl, a bundle of letters in her hands.

‘Hello, Natasha. Margaret.’ She beamed, her blonde bob shimmering in the early morning window-shine.

‘Hi, Dianna,’ I said, biting on both words as though they hurt me to say them. I reached for the milk jug. ‘Congratulations.’

She smiled and looked down at her badge. My badge. ‘Thanks, Natasha. I really couldn’t believe it when she said my name.’

‘Yeah, me neither,’ I muttered.

‘How come you’re on post today, princess?’ said Maggie, snatching the letter Dianna handed her. ‘Thought you’d have a minion running about for you.’

Dianna’s bangs quivered with annoyance. ‘Drop dead, Margaret.’

Maggie faux gasped. ‘I’m shocked. Our new Head Girl using such a callous remark? You get any post from your brother today, Dianna? I’ve always wondered, do prisoners really stick their envelopes down with spunk or is that a myth?’

Dianna stiffened and leaned over Regan’s cereal bowl.

‘Very funny, Margaret. You really should be on Britain’s Got Talent. They’re in dire need of comedians.’ She seemed really annoyed for some reason and every time she spoke, little flecks of spittle flew directly into Regan’s juice glass.