by Kirsty McKay
She has a point. ‘You could have IMd me, at least.’
She stays silent. She’s not one for saying sorry. She doesn’t have the British way of over-apologizing for everything, and sometimes that hurts.
‘Did you find Daniel?’ I sit up.
‘Yes.’
‘I looked . . . I couldn’t find him.’ When she doesn’t enlighten me further, I go on. ‘How was he?’
‘How do you expect?’ She pushes her chair away from the desk and turns round to look at me, face on. ‘He’s broken. He hates to look a fool. He didn’t even realize that anyone else knew, so it’s even worse for him.’
Irritation rolls over me. ‘Most boys would be bragging and having a laugh about it.’
Marcia frowns at me. ‘Daniel is not most boys. Or didn’t you know that?’ She begins to pack up her stuff into her big carpet bag. ‘It’s worse because he actually wants you, of course, and he knows you don’t want him.’ She puts on her coat, clearly ready to get out of here and away from me as soon as possible.
I cringe at her words. But it’s all true, of course. I change tack.
‘Do you know who Smee is?’
She pauses. ‘Even if I did, it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the Game to discuss it with you.’
‘Oh, come on!’ I stand up. ‘Posting snogging videos is hardly in the spirit of the Game, is it?’
She pushes her long hair out of her face. ‘Smee’s female, I’m sure. I think I have some of the boys’ usernames guessed, but Smee has a female voice, and I don’t know who. Whitney, maybe?’
‘Whitney was with me when Anvi showed me the video.’ I think about it. ‘If she is Smee, she’s a great actress.’
‘Then Tesha? Or Emily?’ She scratches her head. ‘To be honest with you, before this, I thought that Smee was you.’
I blink at her. ‘But you don’t think that now, do you? Nobody thinks that I’d post this myself, do they?’
Marcia doesn’t say anything, but grabs her bag and swings it over her shoulder, heading for the door. I stride after her, reaching for her arm.
‘You don’t think I posted it, do you?’
She turns around. ‘I said before this happened I thought you might be Smee. I don’t think so now, no. But do others think that?’ She nods. ‘Yes. Yes they might.’
She turns and goes out of the door. I’m not going to run after her, partly because I’m finished with making a fool out of myself for one day, and partly because I now feel weighted to the floor with the horror that the Guild members think I did this myself.
I move to a desk, to one of the PCs, turn it on, log in to Crypt. There’s some chatter.
AllKillerNoFiller
Awwww . . . the skin flick is gone. Bring it back, Smee!
I_did_it
I think we’ve seen enough
AllKillerNoFiller
Is that you, Danny boy???
I_did_it
I’m not Daniel. That’s why I think we’ve seen enough ;) You can bet D is staying far awaaaaay from here!
AllKillerNoFiller
No change there then
General Disarray
Question is, where’s Smee?
AllKillerNoFiller
He’s taken Smee out . . . KILLLLLLLLED
I_did_it
Smee, nooo! We love you! Everyone forgives you!
General Disarray
Daniel doesn’t
I_did_it
Hey, maybe Smee IS Daniel
General Disarray
Or Smee is Cate. That would be more like it
Skulk
Smee’s not Cate.
I_did_it
How do you know?
Skulk
Because I know who Cate is.
Skulk
I’m watching her.
AllKillerNoFiller
Yeah we all were, before her gal-pal Vaughany took the vid down! :P
I log off, quickly. ‘Skulk’ knows who I am, do they? They’re watching me? As in, hot-chocolate-watching me?
I move to the window of the office, but outside is overcast and gloomy. Anyone out there can see me, but I can’t see them. I draw the blinds, but that seems even worse. I move to put out the lights, but before I do I find my keys in my pocket, and hold them between my fingers like a knife. It feels ridiculous – what am I going to do, stab one of my classmates in the eye? – but it makes me feel better to step out into the dark. I part the blinds a little and peer out. Now the darkening sky has more definition, shapes of trees in the distance, the roof of the Main House silhouetted against a scarlet and purple sky. I can’t see anyone lurking out there, but that doesn’t mean they’re not hiding. There’s Marcia’s water bottle on the desk where she was sitting. It’s almost full. I pocket my keys, take off the top of the bottle, and move back to the door. If Skulk – or anyone else – is monkeying with me, I’ll drench them with water and run.
I make it back to my study, and hide there, skipping High Tea, doing little work, and watching the Crypt chatter. Around 7 p.m., Alex posts something:
Evening, assassins. This is your Grand Master.
Please remember that Crypt is to be used for the
Game, and the Game only. All posts that contain
anything outside the interests of the Game will be
removed, and the user who has posted them will be
banned from Crypt for the remainder of the Game.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind
you that there should be absolutely no reference
made to Crypt or anything posted on it to
non-Guild members. Breaking this rule means
instant and eternal excommunication from the
Guild without negotiation!
Thank you, and have a pleasant evening.
Phew. With the latter half of that post, Alex has effectively prevented the rot from spreading to the rest of the school. Of course, he’s just protecting the Game, but I’m grateful to him anyway.
I await reaction, and the IMs start. There is a little comeback from a couple of users, mainly arguing that anything concerning the players of the Game is relevant to post on Crypt, but that is quickly knocked on the head by Alex. The fact is, gossip about the video is already on the wane. People move on quickly.
I watch the users come and go, and post a few comments so it’s not obvious I’m hiding. Only two users don’t join the discussion this evening: Skulk has disappeared, and just before curfew, the other absentee finally shows up online.
Smee
Sorry, everyone
Smee
I’ll be a good Smee from now on
Smee
Only hope I haven’t upset the wrong person . . .
I log off. My watch is telling me I have precisely five minutes to run up to my dorm and check in with my housemistress, or else risk getting a late mark. I close my laptop, run out into the courtyard. There is no one around; lights in the library are off, and the studies are dark too. I exit by the archway, turn right and start to run towards the Main House dorms.
Something – a noise? Or just the feeling of being watched – makes me look round, back in the direction of the courtyard.
A hooded figure is standing there. I can’t see the face, but the height, the posture . . .
I’m sure it’s Daniel. He stands perfectly still, looking towards me. I realize I’m standing under one of the Victorian street lamps that line the pathways between Umfraville’s central buildings. I feel exposed; he can see me, but I can’t properly see him. I step into the shadows. He takes a step towards me.
Is it Daniel? Doubt creeps in now. I feel for the band around my wrist. I’m immune! But somehow, this doesn’t make me feel any better. The figure takes another step. I turn on my heel, and sprint for the dorms, not feeling safe until I’m up the stairs and in the comforting light and bustle of the girls’ corridor.
Marcia is in the dorm, reading. When she sees me come in, she gives me a quick smi
le. But this time, it’s me who doesn’t feel like talking. I return the smile, however, and reach for my pyjamas, changing quickly. I visit the bathroom, clean my teeth, and the lights are out in our room by the time I return. Thank goodness. I feel my way into bed, and as I do, I feel the rustle of a little slip of paper someone has placed in my bed. My heart beats faster, in spite of myself. Oh, Killer. Let me guess, you’re watching me?
I hold the paper up to the digital clock to see what is written there.
Chin up!
V xx
Warmth spreads through me. I hold the paper in my hand, and lie there, wondering if Vaughan will sneak in here tonight. Wondering, and hoping.
I lie there awake for ages. He doesn’t show up.
CHAPTER 16
Friday, and the blood is still coursing through my veins.
I sit on a grey chair in the ballroom, and play with the two bands around my wrist: the black one that denotes I’m still alive, and the red one that ensures I’ll stay that way for another two days at least.
Morning Exchange is what other schools would call assembly, but Ezra had to be different. Once a week on a Monday, Ezra gets wheeled out of storage and talks, and we listen. Not so much of the ‘exchange’, but it’s vaguely interesting to see he’s still with us – physically, if not so much mentally.
On Tuesdays, some poor teacher is roped in to get things going. Usually they read something moderately profound or educational, and then ask a bunch of questions at the end. In normal schools, they’d probably be hit with a wall of silence, but at Umfraville there are nerds just itching to pick the teachers to bits. It can make for some entertainment.
And then, once a week on a Friday, an individual or group of students steps up. Everyone has to do it, eventually. In my school career, I’ve faced it twice, and it was torturous. My first effort was a group presentation about graffiti. Marcia talked, and Daniel and I gassed everyone by spraying inexpertly on a canvas to demonstrate what Marcia was talking about. All was well until the ‘exchange’ part of the talk, when some gnarly dweeb two years below me made the point that graffiti wasn’t supposed to belong on canvas, but on the wall . . . the furniture . . . and he dared us to demonstrate ‘properly’. Marcia talks a good game, but she couldn’t find a convincing argument. Daniel and I went for it . . . and went down in the history books . . . and the detention books. I smile at the memory; what were we thinking?
The second time – when I was on my own – was a far more sober affair. I talked about the history of Skola, and Umfraville, and by extension, my family’s history. Everyone was rapt. I think it’s because they got some of the information that they’d always wanted to ask. Not so much about the horse rendering plant that was on the island in the nineteeth century, or how Skola is an important breeding ground for the roseate tern, or even why the school paper is called The Loathsome Toad. They were far more interested in how and why a ‘normal’ like me was at the school. Who my family really are, and how we got so lucky.
Through death, is the answer to that last question.
This week, however, I can relax; it’s Emily’s turn to speak. I don’t have high hopes, because it’s not her forte, but if she screws up then at least it will give everyone something to talk about other than Daniel and me locking lips.
Emily’s sitting at the back of the stage while we all pile in and take our seats, and for some reason that will no doubt become apparent soon, she’s playing ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’’ on her MP3 player through the school speakers.
I feel eyes on me. Marcia is on the other side of the room, and Daniel’s not even here, thankfully; he probably has some kind of extra-curricular fiddle scraping to do. The only good thing is that because of the Game, the kids who have seen the snog vid are duty-bound not to gab about it with the rest of the school. I plonk myself a seat or two away from Alex, and then Vaughan sits next to me. I turn to him, shyly.
‘Thanks for the note,’ I whisper.
His eyes widen. ‘What note?’
‘Comedian,’ I whisper back. He winks at me, and his hand slinks over mine and squeezes it, quickly.
The doors shut. The music cuts. We’re all in, and we wait, like hungry lions at the zoo, or in the gladiator stadium, more like.
Emily stands up.
Now, Emily technically had all summer to prepare. Her name was on the list way back in spring term. The pressure is on, because of late these little student presentations have taken on the appearance of a TED talk, or a lecture at the Royal Society. But in truth, I bet Emily was too busy being Emily over summer to write anything. There were track meets where she got to come first in a bunch of competitions of who can throw the pointy thing or the heavy thing the furthest, or who can jump over more sand than anyone else. I’m guessing that she also had a couple of weeks tanning at her family’s place in Barbados, which would be very time-consuming. And since she came back to school? Well, the Game, of course! She’s a new apprentice. All of this excitement is not exactly conducive to prepping a school assembly talk.
Emily strolls easily over to the lectern. She’s over six feet tall in her trainered feet. It’s warm in the ballroom, with the morning sun beating in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and Emily’s wearing a vest top under a sheer silk-knit cardi, skinny capris and that Barbados tan. Her long fingers touch the side of a tablet placed on the lectern, shaking ever so slightly, and as she flicks her eyes up to take in her audience, she licks her lips.
‘Giants – are they really a myth?’ she reads.
A flutter of laughter. Nothing like a bit of self-deprecation to get everyone on board. Beside me, Vaughan snorts. A few heads turn to look at him.
‘Almost every culture has its tales of giants.’ She looks at us for encouragement. ‘Indeed, giants, or cewri, feature prominently in Welsh folklore. But what are their origins? Did they really exist? And are they still walking amongst us?’ Another smattering of laughter. ‘As a person of size,’ she chances a little flirt with her audience, ‘I was excited to find out.’
Warming to her subject, she reads an essay that is clearly pseudo-copied from the school encyclopedia or some Wiki. But as an athlete, Emily should be applauded for even finding the library. Her talk is lightly amusing, and for what I suspect was an eleventh hour under-the-duvet piece of frantic composition, it’s none too shaming. There’s a decent amount of Welsh to keep her tripping over bundles of consonants, and a slight element of us laughing at, not quite with, her. But that’s OK. In many ways it’s a sympathetic audience of preoccupied genii – and the rest of us, who are just very glad it is not our turn.
‘Canthrig Bwt, a giantess and witch notorious in the folklore of Gwynedd, lived under a great stone in Nant Peris and killed and ate a number of the community’s children,’ Emily enthuses.
Nice. Sometimes I think we could do with that kind of giant around here.
My mind begins to wander, regardless. Vaughan is bored too. He’s shifting around in his chair and staring at various people around him, like he’s trying out a remote Vulcan mind-meld.
I’m wondering when I can talk to Daniel, and what I’ll say to him when I do – when I see something twitch in the corner of my vision. It’s as though something was moving in the shadows of the velvet curtains, onstage to Emily’s left. Vaughan thinks he sees it too; his head turns, and he squints. I rub at my eyes. No, nothing there. I need to start getting a little more sleep.
‘Although, in most legends giants are not generally thought of as child killers. Indeed, in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, it is actually an ogre and not a giant who is the villain of the piece.’
Vaughan titters. ‘Fee! Fi! Foe! Fum!’ he bellows. Oh no. I clap a hand over my own mouth, as if I’d done the shouting myself. Vaughan grins to himself. ‘A popular misconception, indeed.’
Everyone is looking at him, including Emily, who clearly did not anticipate audience participation this early in proceedings. Down the line of seats, Alex leans forward and
raises an eyebrow at me. I’m searching my database for a suitably resigned grimace, but before I can slap it on my face, the velvet curtains twitch again. I turn to look. Definitely something there. What is it? A mouse? I wouldn’t be surprised; this place is old and Ezra is not big on pest extermination. Most nights I fall asleep to the sound of things scratching in the walls.
Something skitters forward on the stage. I sit up a little straighter. Not a mouse, it’s the wrong sort of movement. I look around me. Does everybody else see it?
Most do, but Emily doesn’t. She clears her throat, still red in the face with Vaughan’s interjection. I don’t think she’s big on ad-libs.
‘Although typically attributed with prodigious strength and physical abilities . . .’
The skittering thing suddenly moves into her field of vision, and she does the classic double take. There’s a ripple in the audience; finally, we’re all looking in the same direction.
It’s a spider. A huge one. Tarantula-type huge. And it’s heading for Emily.
‘. . . prodigious strength and physical abilities,’ she takes another run at the sentence, unable to stop glancing down at her feet. ‘Giants are frequently depicted as benevolent. And even if they have antagonistic tendencies, as with Goliath . . .’ she glances again, and her voice wavers, ‘. . . they can be swiftly brought down with something significantly smaller than them.’
The spider rears up on its hind legs, and jumps. It lands on Emily’s trainer. She yells, and hops around, shaking her leg in a frantic jive. It clings on.
‘Get it off me!’ Emily is pointing her foot out to the side, getting the spider as far away from the rest of her as possible. She flaps at it with her tablet. It’s not a terribly effective deterrent.
The spider jumps again, this time on to her bare lower leg. Emily screams a full-throated scream, and snags the spider with her hand, sending it up into the air.