Mr Perkins nods, then directs his attention elsewhere. “And you, Anthony?”
“Er…” Anthony stutters. “I don’t mind it here so much, actually.”
“Freak,” Jody says under her breath.
“Don’t call him that,” I say, surprising myself.
“How can you miss your boyfriend when he’s already here?” she retorts.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say calmly. “But you don’t have to call him names.”
“Enough, girls,” Mr Perkins says. “Tom, why don’t you tell us what you’re finding most difficult?”
I know Anthony is staring at me in surprise. I can feel his eyes boring into me but I don’t look at him.
I know he didn’t expect me to stand up for him.
But it’s Anthony. If this is some kind of karmic retribution, then I owe him one. I owe him about six thousand ones. He’s been so nice to me even though I don’t deserve it. And it’s been really nice to spend time with him. I have been enjoying his company.
I’ve called him a freak often enough to know that it hurts him.
And I don’t want to see him hurt. He’s dead, for God’s sake. He’s hurt enough.
Something about hearing Jody say that made me bristle. Anthony doesn’t deserve to have people call him a freak just because he likes something that other people don’t.
I am losing my mind. Never mind being dead, Sophie would kill me if she heard me thinking that.
I sense when Anthony looks away from me and turn my attention back to the room.
“I miss the food,” Tom is saying.
I think he’s a bit nuts, to be honest. “You can get food here.”
“There’s no point in eating things that I can choke on when I’m already dead. Where’s the risk in that?”
“Why do you want to eat food you might choke on?”
“It was my party piece. My friends used to come up with loads of different things and I’d take bets on whether I could eat it or not. Made a nice bit of money too.”
“You don’t mean edible things, do you?” William asks him.
“What’s the point of eating edible things?” Tom asks like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.
“While I’m sure this is helping everyone,” Mr Perkins says quickly, “let’s see if we can’t move on to something more productive. Why don’t we all tell each other one thing that we’d like to see happen in the near future. Just anything that might make your attendance here easier.”
“I wish you could still kill dead people,” Jody says menacingly.
“I wish teachers would stop being so bloody cryptic all the time and just answer our questions,” William says and I wholeheartedly agree with him.
“I would like to make some friends,” Shanna, the fluffy-slippers-of-doom girl says quietly.
“I’d like to pass maths,” Anthony says.
“I want to go home,” I tell them.
“That’s a very good point actually, Riley,” Mr Perkins says. “I’m sure you’re all feeling just like that.”
There’s a vague murmur of agreement but no one really says anything.
“Now this is one of the points we cover in our group therapy sessions. Not usually the first session, but seeing as it has come up, we’ll have a little chat about it, shall we? Now then, I’m sure you’ve all realised that this place is actually home now, and going back to your old lives is simply not a possibility. Everybody here knows how hard it can be to accept something like that—hence my employment. I’m sure you’ve all been made aware that as well as our regular group-therapy sessions, I am available for one-to-one counselling sessions as well. Does anyone have any questions about that? I promise not to shirk out of a proper answer like some teachers are prone to do.”
No one speaks.
After Mr Perkins says we can leave, I pick up my bag and walk as fast as I can, trying to avoid Anthony after what just happened.
I forget that Anthony can run though and he grabs my arm and falls into step next to me just as I get out the door.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.” I smile back.
Why can’t he just drop it? Sticking up for Anthony is just my way of appeasing my guilt about all the times I was cruel to him.
I am in love with Wade.
Anthony is just a friend. Friends stick up for each other all the time. A week ago I would have laughed if you said I’d be calling Anthony a friend.
Anthony. He walks around with a calculator in his pocket, for God’s sake.
“Will you talk to me for a minute?” Anthony says eventually after I’ve made it clear that I have no intention of stopping.
“Fine.” I spin round and glare at him.
“Thank you,” he says eventually. “Thanks for sticking up for me in there.”
I stare at him for a moment and feel my resolve softening with every blink of those grey eyes of his.
Oh God, Riley. Please stop. You don’t like Anthony, remember?
“It’s okay,” I say eventually. “I figure I owe you one, you know, considering…”
“Considering the amount of times you’ve called me much worse than a freak?”
“Not that I needed reminding, but yeah, I guess.” I pause and think about it. “Wait, no. It’s not just that. You’re my friend now. I know how crazy that sounds, and maybe I don’t have any right to expect you to be friends with me after the way I’ve treated you, but I’ve really liked your company this week, and I thought we were friends, and friends stick up for each other, and…”
“I like you too, Riley,” he says. “And I can’t believe I’m saying it either, but you’re okay when you’re not surrounded by a gang of jerks.”
“Not much chance of that here,” I mutter.
He looks at me.
“Not that I would want it or anything,” I add quickly.
“I’m glad we’re friends,” he says. “And don’t worry, I’m not stupid enough to think that you would ever give me the time of day if Wade or Sophie were here, but I don’t mind being second choice. I’ll catch you tomorrow, okay?”
He blushes and rushes off, leaving me standing there staring after him. Something bothers me about Anthony thinking he’s second choice.
“Anthony, it’s not like that,” I shout after him, but he doesn’t hear me.
“Aww, fight with the boyfriend?” Jody taunts as she walks past.
“Oh, sod off,” I tell her and then remember that I probably shouldn’t get on the wrong side of her given the whole tendency to stab people thing.
I can’t like Anthony. Not in that way.
But I do. A little bit.
But I can’t. I had literally never spoken to him civilly before this whole thing happened.
It’s just projection because Wade isn’t here. I’m convincing myself I like the first boy that comes along because I miss Wade. But I love Wade. I haven’t even so much as looked at another boy in the year since Wade and I got together.
Wade is going to come and rescue me. Just as soon as his leg is better. I know he is. He’d be devastated if he knew I’d thought about another boy like that. It would be like I’d cheated on him, and I could never do that to Wade.
Every time Anthony is near I’ll just have to repeat in my head “Anthony is just a substitute for Wade until he gets here to rescue us.”
Yes. That will work.
CHAPTER 17
I’m lying in bed that night, holding my plastic rose necklace in my hand, but it’s not Wade I’m trying to visualise this time.
I keep thinking about my parents. It’s funny how important some things seem now when in life they were utterly irrelevant. I used to have a great relationship with my parents, but it changed when I started comprehensive school. My life became about boys, friends, make-up, and clothes. My parents became an annoyance. They were the people standing in the way of me having a good time. They were always the ones who said ‘no’. Lately, they had become the enem
y. They didn’t approve of Wade. They didn’t approve of the clothes Sophie and I wore when we went out on weekends or after school. They didn’t approve of us going out on a school night. They didn’t approve of my grades or my report cards from the teachers.
Before I died, I was counting down the months until Sophie and I could get a flat together and they wouldn’t be able to tell me what to do anymore.
It’s funny how dying can change your perspective on things. I can suddenly see that they weren’t just being boring old fogies, but they actually cared about me.
Right now I would give anything to hear my mum shouting about the length of my skirt or my dad stuttering his way through a lecture about the importance of condoms and the high rates of teenage pregnancy these days.
Maybe if I had listened to them more, I might not have got into that car with Wade.
Although I lived with them, I feel like we’ve been out of touch for years. I can’t remember the last time I asked my mum or dad how they were, or how their day was, how their jobs were going. I know my dad was worried about getting laid off and at the time, the only thing I could think was how awful it would be for me if he was around the house more often to keep watch on everything I did. I didn’t even consider how much that would affect my dad and my mum, or how worried they were about it. The only thing that mattered was how it would affect me.
I was so self-obsessed.
Anthony is right. I was a horrible person.
It’s all the more reason that I have to get out of here. I have to go back. I have to make it up to my parents. They must have buried me thinking I hated them. I have to make sure they know different. We used to have loads of fun together. Mum would help me with my homework and take me shopping for new clothes when I outgrew the old ones. Dad would take me to the cinema and start a popcorn fight, much to Mum’s disapproval. But then it became social suicide to be seen out with your parents. Kids in my school were seen shopping with their mum and dad on a weekend and ridiculed on Monday morning. It was only acceptable to be seen in town with your mates, so I stopped hanging out with Mum and Dad and only hung out with Sophie and later with Wade’s gang of the cool guys after I started dating him.
Looking back now and knowing that if I don’t get out of here, I may never see my parents again makes a lump rise in my throat.
I hold the rose in my hand and try to visualise them. I lay there and do the same relaxation exercises as we did in class the other morning. I clear my mind and concentrate hard on a memory of us eating ice cream on a beach on a freezing January day. My dad had taken us for a coastal drive and we’d stopped at the sight of an ice-cream van. We’d got an ice cream each and wandered down onto the sand to eat it, wrapped up in scarves and gloves. The wind was whipping up a storm and we all probably ate more sand than ice cream, but I remember laughing as we tried to dodge the worst of it without dropping our ice cream cones. We’d had to sit in the car for ten minutes with the heater on before my dad had defrosted enough to drive away.
I lie there for ages but I’m not getting anything. I’m close to howling in frustration.
I just need to see them.
I concentrate even harder on the memory but I’m still getting nothing.
Why won’t it work for me now?
“What are you moaning about down there?” Caydi asks sleepily from the top bunk.
“Nothing,” I mumble.
“Trying to communicate with your boyfriend again?”
“No,” I protest. “I was just practicing visualisation techniques, but it’s not working.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Caydi says. “You can’t visualise here.”
“Why not?”
“How should I know? All I know is that the mojo is in the Visualisation classroom. It doesn’t work from anywhere else in the school.”
“Have you tried it?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says. “I was new here once as well, you know.”
I nod before I realise that she can’t see me.
“Don’t worry,” she continues. “It gets easier.”
“Pfft,” I say without really meaning to.
“It does. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it will.”
“It won’t,” I say. “Besides, Wade is going to come and rescue me just as soon as he’s better.”
“Yeah, right,” she mutters. “Riley, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but no one is coming to rescue you. This is something that you and only you can help yourself with. If you just give it a chance, be nice to people, and concentrate on your lessons, then you’ll graduate and that’s the only way anyone is getting out of here.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to graduate,” I say. “Maybe I just want to go back home.”
Caydi sighs. “This is home now whether you like it or not. You may as well just accept it.”
“I’ll never accept it. They have no right to keep us here.”
“Who has no right?”
“The teachers. The headmistress. The silent partners. I don’t know, whoever is keeping us here.”
“The laws of the universe are keeping us here, Ri. Like it or not, accept it or not, you are dead. Dead people can’t live on earth. You died, by definition that means your life ended. Get over it and get on with what’s left.”
“But I didn’t ask to die. I didn’t want to be killed.”
“By my understanding, it was your boyfriend who killed you,” Caydi snaps.
I don’t bother to respond to that.
“Sorry,” she says after a while. “It’s just that I know what it’s like, and let me tell you it’s a lot easier if you just accept it rather than spend all your time pining after some impossible hope. When I first came here, for months I hoped against hope that my older brother knew where I was and would come and get me. He’s a Goth, like me, and he’s very into death and stuff like that. I told myself that he would somehow know about this place and he would come to rescue me. Obviously, he didn’t. The living don’t know about this place. No matter what you think or what line of communication you think you have, they don’t. Even if they did, they couldn’t get in here. You can’t be here unless you’re dead.”
“Wade nearly died,” I say. “I think he saw this place. I think he knows better than some Goth brother.”
This time it’s her that’s silent and it’s my turn to apologise.
“Sorry,” I say. “I know we’re all in this together and everything. I just miss everyone so much that it’s messing my head up. I can’t sit here and say ‘Okay, I’ll never see them again and it doesn’t matter,’ because it does matter. I miss Wade when he’s off school for a day. I can’t just accept that I’ll never see him again.”
“It does get easier,” Caydi says. “I know you won’t believe me at the moment, but it does. Time heals all wounds.”
“Wade is going to come,” I say. “He misses me too. I know he does. I can’t just sit here and wait for him.”
Caydi sighs again from the bunk above me and I can almost hear the unspoken “whatever” in her voice.
“I was on the Internet the other day,” I say casually. “I read that there might be a way out.”
The bed creaks as Caydi leans over the side and stares down at me.
“It’s a rumour,” she says eventually. “Clare is very into it. She’s convinced that there’s a way to get back home. Some people think different things. There are so many rumours because nothing is certain. People think that it’s a vortex and you step into it and go to heaven. Others think that the only way to get into heaven is to graduate. Some say that if you fail you’ll end up going to hell.”
“What do you think?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve heard that if there is a way home, it will take you back to before whatever happened to you so you can change it. I like to think that’s what happens when you graduate, but I don’t know because once people leave here, it’s not like they’re going to pop back to confirm it either way
.”
“And if there is a secret exit?”
“Good luck finding it,” she says. “I don’t think anyone ever has so far.”
“What about the girl who disappeared? The one they mentioned on the forum?”
Caydi shrugs again. “Nice girl, well-adjusted. Probably graduated, but like I said, we’ll never know.”
I sigh.
“Don’t worry about it, Riley,” Caydi says. “It will get easier, you’ll see.”
She’s asleep soon after, but I’m not.
I can’t help but think about what she just said.
An exit. Possibly to go back to before the accident. I could stop myself getting killed. I could stop Anthony getting killed. I could stop Wade getting hurt.
I would do anything to go back to before all this happened.
I have to find that exit.
I don’t know where or how I intend to start looking for the way out. It can’t exactly be in the middle of the school with a flashing neon “Secret Exit” sign above it, can it? It must be really well hidden. But I figure that gives Anthony and me a better chance to find it because we know the school better than most of the other students, seeing as it’s where we went when we were alive.
I want to get on that forum again but I’m afraid of using the computers in the library in case the librarian is in there. I went in one lunchtime the other day just to look around, and she watched me with her beady eyes until I left again. I wish the suitcase they magically transferred over here on my first day had my laptop in it. That would have been so much more helpful. Although I have no idea if there is any kind of Death World Wi-Fi here.
CHAPTER 18
I find Anthony at breakfast and tell him about my plan.
He’s less than impressed, to say the least.
“Riley…” he starts as we sit at our table and start eating our chocolate croissants (me) and toast (him).
He doesn’t seem to know how to continue the sentence.
“We have to do something,” I say quietly. I don’t know what the policy on eavesdropping is in this school but considering that every adult here seems to know my name and everything about me without me telling them, I’m keeping my voice down. The last thing I want to do is attract attention.
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