Fury (3 page)

“Oh! Sorry. That was a … nervous twitch. I don’t normally do
that.
I hope
you
don’t think I normally do that! I swear. I promise it won’t happen again.”

She was definitely a strange one. But I kinda liked that. She’s quirky. Quirky is cool: it’s like the new … er …
new…

More students started arriving noisily from outside and Mr Carter welcomed them in with a lazy wave of his hand. He strode down the middle of the room between the desks, snatching a comic book off Daniel Smalls as he passed.

“Early once again, Boans?” snarled Smalls under his breath.

“Well you’re not exactly … late yourself!” I snapped back.

Oh my God, how lame was that?

Smalls snickered and I hid the side of my face with my palm.

“Miss Boans!”

Mr Carter’s voice echoed from somewhere beyond the classroom door.

“Was that your voice I just heard heckling your fellow students?”

Daniel Smalls looked back in my direction and a smirk broke out across his hamster cheeks. Looked like he’d gotten himself a new buzz cut during the break. He really should do us all a favour and go ahead and join the army.

“That is so unfair!” I turned to Ella and muttered. “How can Mr C. blame me? Didn’t he even hear Smalls?”

I craned my neck to see Mr Carter standing just outside the door, talking to two almost identical-looking students.
Identical
as in they were both blonde, sported the same haircut and were wearing their school uniform in exactly the same way.
Almost,
as in one was tall, thin and good-looking. The other was short, tubby and rather … fugly.

I grabbed Ella’s shoulder. “Hey, look.”

Ella turned eagerly in the same direction.

“See those girls? You’ll never see one without the other.
They even chose the same subjects so they can take all their classes together. They aren’t twins, but they might as well be. They’re both called Jane. We call them the
Jane Blondes.”

I laughed at my own joke.

Ella stared for the longest time.

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Lexi, Marianne and me of course.”

Ella stared again at the Jane Blondes.

“That is sort of mean,” she said finally. “They are so beautiful.”

“They are
not
beautiful. They’re pure nastiness. Look, you don’t know anything about them, not like we do. Last weekend I had on this white dress, and we bumped into them at the Leftbank and one of them had a bright blue slushie…”

But Ella wasn’t listening anymore. She was unpacking the contents of her pencil case instead. She had a large Japanese eraser in the shape of a panda, with three tiny baby ones in the shapes of a penguin, dolphin and a sunfish. She was lining them up across the desk.

A thin shape suddenly cast a dark shadow in front of us.

“New girl, eh? What’s your name, new girl?”

I looked up to find Jeremy Biggins standing in front of us. Ella slowly looked up as well. I could see Biggins’ sidekick, Smalls, leering again in our direction.

“My name’s Ella. Who are you?”

“Biggins is my name. Jeremy Biggins. So
Ella-ella-ella,
you reckon you … fancy this
fella?”

“Huh?” said Ella.

“Don’t say anything,” I said.

“
Ella
won’t you be my …
Cinderella?”

Biggins put his grimy paws onto the edges of our desks.

“Wouldn’t you like some of my …
mortadella?”

From the corner of my eye I could see Smalls double-up in laughter. That was enough. I stiffened my hand and chopped right into Jeremy Biggins’ wrist.

“Oww!”
yelped Biggins and he released both his hands from the desks. I couldn’t tell what was reddening faster: Biggins’ wrist or his cheeks.

“Good,” I said. “I hope I broke something.”

“Why you horrible little…”

I stood up. I was half-a-head taller than Biggins.

“That will teach you to shoot your mouth off! And you can tell your friend over there to shut up as well! I don’t know why you are called Biggins when you are actually quite small. Especially when your friend Smalls is, funnily enough, quite big. Come on, Ella.”

I dragged her from her chair and up the middle of the room towards the door. Ella protested the entire way.

“You’ll get into trouble for assaulting another student, Boans!” yelled Biggins.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t have it coming!” I shouted back.

It was unfortunate that I happened to shout this right into Mr Carter’s ear.

“Excuse me, Miss Boans?” Mr Carter asked, shocked.

“Ask him!” I said angrily. Before he could say anything I pushed Ella out the door and we both scampered away. In fact, Ella didn’t seem to need any encouragement. I had to keep up with her as she ran half a length in front of me up the South corridor, forgetting about the new Italian tiles. Mr Carter stared after us, speechless. He hurriedly tried to usher the Janes into class, but not before I could feel their cold blue eyes boring into the back of my head.

They say that all daughters eventually grow up to become their mothers. I totally detest my mother, but I am trying to accept my Fate. I have realised that I am hot-tempered, unreasonable and I do stupid, impulsive things … just like my mother.

“Are you all right?” I asked Ella as I caught up to her.

“Of course I’m not!” She spat back.

She was rattling the glass door at the end of the hallway, trying to pull it open.

“Hey! Don’t worry about Smalls and Biggins; they’re idiots and they’re always like that. If I had my way I’d—”

“I am not worried about them!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t believe that you just embarrassed me like
that in front of the whole class! On my first day at a respectable school and everything. Can you imagine what everyone must think of me?”

“Oh,” I replied, staring at her angry, pinking face as she tugged at the door handle.

I wanted to tell Ella that just because the school was respectable didn’t mean all the students were. Instead, I took hold of the handle and pushed the door outward. Ella pitched forward and almost landed on her face.

“You know, I
was
trying to help.”

I followed Ella as she rushed out the door. The sudden brightness of the outside world hurt my eyes and I put out my arm to shade my face.

There were purple and red clouds that looked like smudges of bruise and blood against the face of the sky. Must be an electrical storm blowing in from the coast. I could feel the cool spring breeze in the air, flirting with my hair. I couldn’t wait for summer.

Ella stomped down towards the school lake. It is not a real lake. It is as man-made and fake as the rest of East Rivermoor. She reached the old ghost-gum tree and threw herself on the grass. I sat down beside her.

“I didn’t mean to cause a scene with you in it.”

Ella said nothing. She pulled a dandelion out of the grass.

“I’m so sorry.”

She beheaded the flower with her thumbnail and threw it over her shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Ella shook her head.

“Well, I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. It’s not what I wanted either.” I said, as nicely as I could. “Why don’t we pretend that none of this ever happened and start from the beginning? You can pick who you want to be your friends over again. I mean, I promise I won’t even look your way in the lunch-hall.”

I smiled at Ella. She didn’t smile back.

“Oh well. I don’t know what to do now. I can’t go back. So I reckon I’m just going to go home.”

I stood up and started walking, dusting grass clippings off my backside.

“Wait,” called Ella.

“Yeah?” I said and turned around.

“Are you still keeping your word that I can come over to see your house?”

“Um, yeah. If you still want to.”

“I’d love to.”

Ella stood up eagerly. “Our bags and things are still back at History class though.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. I don’t think anyone will touch them. I mean, who wants to pinch another copy of
Modern History?”

For a split second I thought about Ella’s primary school-like erasers. One large panda with three of its smaller friends all lined up. Where were they heading? I wondered if someone
had knocked them off the desk already. After the cleaners had been, they’d probably be hoovered up and gone completely.

What a silly thing to think. I didn’t even know why I thought it, so I forgot about it.

Ella smiled then. I held out my arm and she linked hers with mine.

“Let go of me!” She screams again.

“Stop it,” Dr Fadden says loudly into my ear. “Don’t you think you are in enough trouble already?”

I stop struggling. Dr Fadden somehow manages to lift and turn me around in the other direction so I can’t see Ella anymore.

“I hope you’re happy with yourself, Ella!” I yell since I know she can still hear me.

“This is not what I wanted either, Lizzie!” Ella’s voice wails back.

“Don’t
Lizzie
me: I am not your Lizzie anymore! I don’t think so, not after Lexi and Marianne were so kind to you and all you did was throw it back in their faces!”

“Don’t make me sound like some charity case,” whines Ella. “You were never my friends. You just felt sorry for me! Because I’m not a real Priory girl. Not like you three snobs!”

“You’re right, you’re not a charity case, ’cos a charity case would be grateful. You’re a user!”

“Ellanoir?”

It is the voice of Ella’s mum. She is standing in the doorway in front of me, wringing a handkerchief in her hands. Even in public she is wearing a Jane Austen dress. With her hair in a bun as severe as a librarian’s.

“Dearest, come on. We’re going home,” she says, quickly gliding past the spectacle of me and Dr Fadden spooned in a one-way embrace.

I can hear Ella wipe her snot away and shuffle obediently toward her mother. There is silence for a few seconds. I take it they are having a hug.
Touching.

Mrs Dashwood tows Ella along past me, her hand clasped tightly on top of her daughter’s.

Ella,
forever-the-follower.
Jeremy Biggins didn’t pick that one. He should have.

“You!” Mrs Dashwood stops and points her finger at me.

“How dare you do this to my daughter! I should have known better than to move to this neighbourhood. Just because you people are rich, doesn’t mean you are any more civilised!”

Well no shit Sherlock.
I could have told her that from the start and spared her the pain.

“We opened up our home to you and this is how you repay us? You are absolutely shameless. You are the most loathsome girl I have ever met! I hope you rot in jail. Ella, come, now!”

Ella whines the entire length of the room. Even after they have gone I can still hear her high-pitched voice bouncing off the corridor walls outside.

I suddenly realise that I am sliding downwards. My shoulders have inexplicably become weak and Dr Fadden is desperately trying to hold me up. Maybe my shoulders just don’t work anymore, which is strange because I do Yogalates three times a week. Maybe I am giving up. I don’t really know. I look up at the doctor.

“I want to go,” I whisper.

Not that I have anywhere to go. I wonder what I mean, myself.

I must have been staring at this blank wall for ages. For the longest time, it’s the only thing existing in my world. I am not aware of walking back into the interview room and sitting down on the hard metal chair. Or of Dr Fadden going out and then coming back again. All I feel is something hot suddenly shoved into my hands. It is a mug of steaming black coffee. I take a mouthful gratefully. Then I spit it back out when it burns the roof of my mouth.

“Back to square one,” says Dr Fadden without a hint of irony. “And so are the days of our lives…”

I stare at the doctor. Slowly his features stop being just a set of shapes and lines and settle into a face again.

“Why is Ella allowed to leave?” I find my mouth moves itself to form the words. “What did she say? Have Marianne and Lexi gone too?”

“Well I guess Ella must have been a good girl and told the truth. Now, do you think it’s fair that she gets to go and you’re still sitting here?”

I scowl. “I am not loathsome. Mrs Dashwood doesn’t know the first thing about me. I mean, I can be a good person too…”

Dr Fadden leans in closer to me across the table.

“Why don’t you start then by telling me your side of the story?”

I lean in close to the middle of the table as well.

“No,” I say.

“Oh,” he replies.

“You see, unlike Ella, I’m going to stand up for my friends. Ella doesn’t know the first thing about loyalty. You know what? I
don’t
deserve to rot in jail! How can an adult even say something like that? To a sixteen-year-old as well! To someone as young and impressionable as me…”

“Eliza,” says Dr Fadden. “
Earth to Planet Eliza.
Do you hear me all the way up there on your soapbox? All the more to prove them wrong, don’t you see?”

I put my coffee down on the table. I place it so it is perfectly spaced between Dr Fadden and me. It stands as a small cylindrical barrier between us.

“Do I look like I’m stupid?” I say. “You fetching me this coffee and suddenly becoming my Agony Uncle, when for how long—weeks? Months? No one,
not one single person,
has bothered to listen to me—to
us!
How do I even know you didn’t set up that whole thing in the kitchen before? To try and get me to spill my guts?”

“Hey,” replies Dr Fadden. “If I recall correctly, you were the one who asked to be let out. I didn’t ask you to stumble across your friend and try to pull her hair out.”

He sounds defensive. I open my mouth, but then I close it again.

“I am only trying to help you, Eliza. If you don’t talk to me, how am I supposed to help?”

“Trust me, I—all of us—did a lot of talking. Do you think it helped? If it did, then you tell me why am I sitting here right now? I am done ‘talking’. Period.”

Dr Fadden sighs.

“Well, then I guess you’ll end up like Ella’s mum said. In jail and forgotten. Ella gets to go home. To a hot bath and a change of clothes, back to her comfortable room and bed. To carry on with her normal life. To forget about you and your friends.”

Dr Fadden leans back on his chair and tips the front legs up.

“Eventually she’ll go to uni. Maybe she’ll get the job she always dreamed of. Move out of home, meet a nice boy, get married, have children. And one day in the future, maybe she’ll think, ‘Oh, I wonder what happened to Eliza Boans, that girl I went to school with?’ Or maybe she won’t. Either way, you’d still be forgotten. So, what choice do you have, but to trust me?”

He pauses and waits for my reaction.

“Screw you,” I reply.

Dr Fadden raises his eyebrows and uncrosses his arms. I do the same thing.

“
Trust
you? How can I trust you? I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your first name.”

He studies me with his fingers cupped in front of his mouth.

“It’s Brian.”

“See?” I point out, “I knew you’d never …
oh.”

We stare at each other. “Nice name.”

I know a Brian from class and he’s both a nerd and a creep at the same time; he will probably grow up to afford a beautiful mansion on The Bourne where he can build his own lovely torture dungeon.

“You lie,” Dr Fadden says. “Brian is a terrible name. I know you think so: I can see it in your eyes.”

He is studying me. For a moment I believe he can see right through me.

“When I was your age,” continues Dr Fadden, “I wore
huge wire-framed glasses. I was a geek. The other kids called me
Brain.”

I force a smile. I don’t know anyone who says
geek
anymore. And why is he telling me these things? Is he trying to win me over with his empathy? ’Cos I sure as hell can’t relate to him.

I stare back at Dr Fadden. He is not wearing glasses of any description. He is good-looking. He doesn’t look like a
geek.
But he could be a liar. I know better these days than to trust the cute boys.

“You say that you can’t trust me, Eliza, but I probably have more trouble trusting you: have you ever thought about that?”

I say nothing.

“Why don’t you tell me about Alexandria?”

Dr Fadden flicks something out of his manila folder and pushes it toward me. It is a picture of Lexi.

Lexi is, IMHO, the most beautiful girl at school. Jane Ayres of the Jane Blondes may be leggy and thin and blue-eyed, but she is as one-dimensional and fake as her bleached hair. Lexi looks like one of those laced-up heroines on the cover of the romance paperbacks my mother reads.
Three-for-the- price-of-two
at the airport, my mother’s second home.

In the photo that Dr Fadden has out in front of me, Lexi looks like a cocaine whore.

When we were unceremoniously shipped to the police station yesterday, the first thing they did, after tearing us apart, was to take our photos. I wonder, if right at this moment, in
another interrogation room, some other cop is showing Lexi my photo. I’ll hate to know how I look in it.

That is, if Lexi is still here. Not sold out and gone too.

I walked to school with Lexi as usual the morning after we first met Ella. I hate having to walk.
Anywhere.
I reckon one day when I get my licence and my mum gets me that Saab she promised, I will drive everywhere. Even to the corner deli to pick up my milk. Lexi, on the other hand, loves to walk. She was on a self-confessed “Jane Austen Exercise Program”.

“Have you ever heard of any of her heroines being described as overweight? Never! And did they have treadmills and stepping machines back in those days? They stayed in shape because they lived hundreds of miles apart from each other so they had to walk everywhere.” Lexi was all arms and hand gestures. “I have never been inside a gym and I never plan to, thank you very much. Gyms are so, like, Greco-homo-erotic.”

I wouldn’t say that Lexi’s the skinniest girl I know, but she wasn’t fat either, so maybe her exercise regime was working. Or maybe it’s more like Lexi only eats one meal a day, except for on Mondays and Fridays, and has what she calls a “mild eating disorder”.

I don’t really mind walking with Lexi. She’s always so chatty that it makes it easy when you have nothing good to say.

The streets here are very small and are for private vehicles only. They’re paved with these pretty, dark-grey cobblestones in small rainbow patterns. We even have those old-fashioned lampposts ordered directly from London. I can’t imagine how it must feel to live in a suburb with trucks and heavy traffic. The parents who live in places like that really should do better by their children.

Lexi carried her shoulder bag with one hand on the strap. Her fingernails were painted black. I didn’t carry my school bag because it happened to still be in Mr Carter’s classroom. My mother left me another twenty in the fridge, but Lexi had been sweet and made me a sandwich. She’d tied the paper bag with raffia, and had decorated it with a paper heart, my name handwritten neatly in the middle. Lexi doesn’t have a mother so sometimes she becomes mine.

“I still like making lunch, even though I don’t eat it,” said Lexi, proud about both.

I rolled my eyes. Lexi makes out like she never eats, but I saw her tucking into that bagel yesterday and no doubt today she’ll whip out another “I-packed-it-just-in-case-my- blood-sugar-levels-bottom-out lunch”.

“Thanks, you’re such a sweetheart,” I replied.

I thought about leaving the twenty dollars in the fridge that morning just to spite Mum. Then I thought about how much I needed a new mascara, and with my credit card maxed out and all … I quickly shoved the note into my blazer before I changed my mind.

“So has your new BFF Ella been over yet to see the ‘best house in East Rivermoor’?”

“Yes,
our
new friend Ella did come over after school yesterday. We walked home together.”

“And?”

“She loved it. She was like, ‘oh my God you have a powder room,’ and I was like, ‘we have four, actually,’ and she almost peed herself. I think when I showed her my bedroom in the turret and my four-poster bed—that’s when she truly died.”

Lexi smiled wryly. “I realise I was kinda mean to Ella yesterday when I just sat there and said nothing … but like Marianne says, we can’t let someone into our group just like that. We don’t know anything about her.”

“Since when have you listened to Marianne?” I replied and shot her a stony glance. Lexi looked away quickly.

“You know what I mean, Lizzie. We’ve known each other forever. Our parents have always known each other. You met Ella randomly in the lunch queue just yesterday.”

“I know, but—”

“All I’m saying is that Marianne might be right. You said Ella’s mother used to home-school her before they moved to East Rivermoor, right? Her mother could be some sort of freaky hermit. And anyway, this is our last term. We should just enjoy it together. Just the three of us.”

I didn’t reply. The Marianne thing got to me more than I would admit.

“Let’s just let her hang around,” I said finally. “She’s
actually quite funny and quirky and pretty too. Okay, so we can work on the pretty part. The question is, do you want to see her fall into the hands of the Jane Blondes instead?”

“I guess not,” replied Lexi, not sounding very convinced. “You’re the boss after all. Oh. Hi.”

A tall blond boy with black eyes slid up next to Lexi. Have you ever wondered where all the emo kids disappear to when the sun comes out? Well, some of them change out of their skinny jeans and go play sport. This was one of them. I called him by his last name, Aardant. Lexi called him by his first name, Alistair, and it made her blush every time.

“I heard the date has been set for the end-of-school ball,” he said.

“Oh really?” replied Lexi and she started fiddling with her hair.

“I heard about it yesterday after training.”

What a jerk. As if he didn’t have a girlfriend already. And speaking of the she-devil, that girlfriend happened to be Jane Ayres. I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to take Lexi to the ball instead of that psycho, but…

I flashed him a look and decided to walk ahead. I didn’t want to hear him tell Lexi to check out those calves just made for slow dancing. For the first time in my life, I breathed a sigh of relief as I reached the school gates.

Somewhere along the line, the Parent and School Committee had decided that the air of sophistication Priory needed was a pair of golden gates, with cupids and
cornucopias on top of them. The only problem was that the Parent and School Committee didn’t want to appear cheap by getting gold leaf, so they got solid gold. As a result the gates are so heavy that they now remain permanently open. Doing an awesome job of keeping strangers out and truants in.

Unfortunately, standing at the open gate was the large figure of Daniel Smalls. I sucked in my breath.

“Boans!” He bellowed and pointed at me with his hand in the shape of a gun. “Hollerings wants to see you. You’re in trouble—big time.”

He shot his imaginary gun at me and sauntered off.

I scowled. I swear he’s part troll. I’ve seen his father once and he looks just like a Ukrainian weightlifter.

“Thanks for the personal service!” I shouted at Smalls’ retreating figure.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Lexi stood behind me, alone now.

“No … I’ll go myself,” I fumbled.

“Come on,” said Lexi and she put her slender hand with its beautiful black-polished nails into the crook of my arm.

Lexi’s a real humanitarian. She’s beautiful and kind. She collected five thousand Coke can ring-pulls last year so that some missionary in Indonesia could make legs for land mine victims. She was so going to be Belle of the Ball this year.

I didn’t want to go to Principal Hollerings’ office. It’s in the gross part of the school that’s made of brown brick and brown panelling and well—brown everything. But when he moves into the new building, he will have the office befitting a Principal of Priory. It will have a grand entrance, a tropical atrium, a library antechamber and a reception foyer. Getting through to Principal Hollerings after that will be like trying to crack
The Da Vinci Code.

Even though the first class of the day hadn’t even started, I was not the first to the Principal’s office. Shane McGowan was sitting on the bench, and Pete Noble was sitting on the other end, as far away from him as possible. They both had matching bruises on their faces. They both looked in opposite directions.

“Wow,” I said to Pete. “How on earth did I miss out on getting a ticket? If I knew I would have been there ringside.”

“Don’t stress, Eliza,” he smirked. “You can still come backstage.”

They really should do something about the number of smart-asses being sent to the principal. You’d think that we were living in 1984, ’cos apparently back then they had a police state where everyone had the right to dob in everyone else. Kinda like this school system.

Stan Collymore and Paul Merson and the usual goon squad were also there. And so was Neil Fernandes.

During the term break, I’d received a postcard stamped
Dallas, Texas.
From the Sixth Floor Assassination Museum, where you can check out the actual window that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. It was signed:
you know who
and a smiley face. I could feel the postcard now, inside the pocket of my blazer. I was reminded it was there every time my heart beat.