29. Before

All day, every day, I think of that evening in the orchard, over and over, trying to remember something I said, some slight, anything Princess could've taken in the wrong way.

I can't think of anything.

Again and again I see her face screwing up with hurt and hate and feel her pushing me, feel the crack of my skull against the tree trunk.

It's a bit of a stereotype that popular girls are usually bullies. I used to be popular, but I was never a bully. None of my friends were. It was like we were just carried around on a soft cloud of our own superiority. We didn't touch anyone and no one could touch us.

But now everything has changed. I'm fair game and it's like a fever. I walk down a hall and I see it in everyone's flushed cheeks. Everyone, everyone, has something to say, and if they don't, they just wait for an opportunity to joust me with a shoulder, knock my bag, drop something in my lunch.

So, I start eating lunch in the toilets.

Then one day, I think it might just be subsiding. I think, after a morning without shoves or snide comments, with a few actual smiles, that there's an end in sight.

And then I walk into the common room at lunch and it's empty, which it never is, and pasted up on the walls are pictures torn from magazines. I can't figure them out from where I stand in the doorway, so I walk closer.

Women with splayed legs and men pressing into them. Mouths stretched around shiny penises. A lesbian orgy.

All of the women's faces have been pasted over with pictures of sheep's heads.

Speech bubble stickers are scrawled with ‘BAAA!!!'.

I hate myself for crying as I tear down as many pictures as I can.

I run out onto the top field and sit picking at the grass, clutching my bag of porn. I should just run away. Climb over the fence in the trees at the edge of the school grounds, where no one can see me.

Except someone has already.

‘Can you tell me what happened?' asks Miss Smith.

I turn away and rub my eyes with my purple blazer. I want to pull my school bag behind me, but I mustn't do anything to draw attention to it.

‘It might help to talk about it. If something's really wrong, I could talk to the headteacher for you?' she says, her hand on my arm.

I pull away. Talk to the head? Social death. We'd have to move away to survive that. But maybe that's the only answer. Hadn't I just been considering running away? I shake my head. ‘I'm fine.'

‘Let's talk about this later. After school.'

I shake my head again. If I tell her about me, then I'll end up telling her what the whole school is saying about her. The rumours about why she left her last school and all the wild stories they make up about her. It'll hurt her when really it's just kids being stupid. I don't want to hurt her. I don't want her worrying about me.

‘Wait for me,' she says, a hand on my arm. ‘After school, I'll give you a ride home. You can tell me all about it.'

I look into her beautiful eyes, her kind, honest face, and I want to. More than anything. But I can't. So the second the school bell rings, I slip out and away.

I make a little campfire of twigs, pine cones and pornography. I stare into the flames, telling myself, This is just one moment in my life. It's about them, not me, and believing the opposite.

I was never meant to be one of the popular ones. They're punishing me for tricking them. This is how life will always be.

In class the next day,Don strides between the desks towards Miss Smith with something hidden in his fist. He places a little black velvet box on top of a stack of textbooks teetering before her.

‘What's this?' She picks it up with her head cocked. She's wearing a white skirt suit and I wish I could find a way of telling her it's too short, too flattering, for a teacher as beautiful as her.

‘A token of affection,' says Don, eyes sparkling, mouth wide.

She opens it and grins, pulling out a gold chain with a red apple pendant. ‘What's this in aid of?'

My stomach flips. Don has given every girlfriend he's had a necklace with a red pendant. They wear them like medals long after he's moved on.

Don't put it on, I plead silently as she unclasps it.

‘Some people think you're a pretty fine teacher,' he says.

I see Whip hiding a faux-shocked mouth behind her hand, scooping her gaze around the room to see how many eyes she can collect.

Miss Smith knows he's flirting, right? She knows he's saying she's hot, doesn't she?

Miss Smith pauses and I relax a little. ‘This isn't a bribe, is it?' she says.

Don laughs. ‘I wouldn't say no to some special treatment.'

She scowls at him, but playfully, mouth pushed to the side. ‘Well, thank you, everyone,' she says, looking out at us all. Does she think it's from all of us?

‘You're welcome,' says Don. No one else says a thing.

She clips it on and lets the pendant fall between her breasts. ‘What kind of special treatment?'

He shrugs, waits a beat too long. ‘Extra tuition?'

She puts her head on one side. Is she flirting back? She might think it's a joke but no one else will.

‘Honestly, Miss. You're the best drama teacher we've ever had. I'm just scared I'm not good enough. You always know how to get the best out of us. Would you, maybe, consider giving me some one-to-one attention?'

That sparks an expression of concern on Miss Smith's ridiculously pretty face. I can almost see her cogs working. Private tuition is such a thing for every PES student. Why should they get one-on-one sessions for chemistry and maths and English and subjects that will get them into Oxbridge but not for drama?

Somehow, she falls for it, and by the end of class we've all put our names down for individual slots. I can't look her in the eye as I write mine into the grid, though I can feel hers burning into me.

What have you done, Miss Smith?