It feels like we wait forever for the jury to come back, but in reality it’s only six hours, three on one day and three on the next. That’s what the court clerk says. The day after the speeches, at three in the afternoon, we are all called back into the courtroom, and the jury foreman says I’m guilty of two counts of murder, one count of false imprisonment, and one count of having an article with a blade or point in a public place (the woods).
The judge tells us he has prepared for this eventuality and is ready to pass a sentence. I don’t know what this means—I thought my sentence was “guilty”—so I keep quiet. He turns to me and looks down his nose at me. He looks mad. He says, “It was a savage and brutal crime, cunning in its conception, and undertaken with a sadistic joyfulness I have seen rarely even in seasoned violent criminals. You have consistently displayed no remorse for your actions. Indeed, you believe you are righteous, and that the public should be grateful to you. This crime, and your demeanor, horrifies even me, with my long tenure in this court.”
The room is very quiet.
“Public debate on this sentence will be lengthy and thorough, and probably should be, but I see no option but to sentence you at Her Majesty’s pleasure.”
The people in the audience gasp. I turn to Amber. “How long’s that?” I whisper to her.
“As long as a piece of string,” she says.
I make a face and tut. “What the fuck does that mean?” Amber shakes her head at me and I clap my hand to my mouth. “Sorry.” I look at Mum and Dad. Phew. They’re not looking at me, just at each other. I know they would be ashamed if they thought I sounded common and rude. It’s being around the kids at the children’s home. They swear all the time. I guess the kids’ prison will be pretty much the same. I look over at Georgie, who is sat in the audience on the other side of the room, and shake my head at her in disgust. She betrayed me. She looks away from me, down into her lap. She gave evidence for the other side. Macintyre is sat with her. I guess they’re happy now. Mum and Dad turn back to look at me. Mum is crying.
The judge concludes, “I am recommending a minimum stay of ten years in a maximum-security facility for juvenile offenders.” He bangs the hammer and everyone starts talking animatedly, but in a hushed way, so it’s like a huge, buzzing murmur. All the people Ruth told me were journalists leap up and run out of the room.
They let me hug Mum, Dad, Nanny, and Granddad before the men who are going to transfer me to the children’s prison take me away. Ruth will go with me and drop me off there. It’s nice to see my family, because they haven’t been allowed to visit me loads at the children’s home, but I’m sad that they didn’t bring Sam, because I haven’t seen him at all since I was arrested. I haven’t seen Nathan either, but Mum and Dad said I won’t be able to see him again. They went to the trailer and asked, but his mum didn’t know where he was. He’s also been taken into foster care. I knew Nathan’s mum was horrible. That’s probably why he’s been sent away. Hopefully Sam at least can come and visit me at the secure facility, which is in an undisclosed location. I wonder what crimes the other kids will have done. Maybe there will be some tough, brave crusaders, killers of bad people, like me.
Nanny and Granddad hug me first. Granddad gives me a book to read, called Papillon. “Use your years in prison to learn, my dear Thera,” he whispers in my ear. “The active mind can never truly be imprisoned. It is a guarantee of freedom you should guard and foster carefully.”
“I promise I’ll read lots,” I tell him. My social worker confiscates the book later, and I never get to read it. I’m finding out more and more not to trust anyone who works for the police or prisons or court. They are most definitely not on my side.
Nanny gives me a big squeeze, but doesn’t say anything apart from that she loves me. She kisses all over my arms and her eyes are wet. “Don’t cry, Nan,” I say. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to learn and work on stuff while I’m away, like Granddad said. I’ll see you when I get out.”
Mum and Dad give me the biggest hugs I’ve ever had from them in my life. I can tell they are sad, but they are much quieter and calmer than we all were at the police station. They tell me they love me and that they will come and visit on the first day they are allowed, which is in two weeks. “Behave yourself, my little baby,” Mum says to me, before making a weird, choking, animal noise and turning away from me.
“Bye, I love you,” I call as the men lead me away. “Get Sam to feed my Nano Pet!”
When we leave in a police car to get my stuff from the home, there is a roar of voices outside, and some of the pro-me posters bang against the windows. “We’re with you, Thera,” a lady mouths from outside. Another gives me a thumbs-up. Their breath fogs up the glass. I’m surprised they have been out there the whole trial. It’s a frosty January.
28 January 2000
I still don’t get why they had to lock me up. It’s not like Billie was going to get killed again, leaving me to hunt another murderer, although I have to admit, now that I have a knack for it, I’m not afraid of killing. There are plenty of other girls and even little boys who get abducted all the time and never find vengeance or peace. Some of them have started to visit me. Kids who weren’t killed by Nick. Who were killed by other men. There are plenty of men out in the world, and many of them are evil, and I know now that some ladies are evil too. Sometimes I imagine all the dead girls’ and boys’ little ghosts wandering around, crying for their mummies and daddies, sitting next to their buried corpses in shallow ditches or deep lakes, wondering why they can’t go home, and why they can’t go up in the clouds to play, when I know it’s because their stories remain unresolved, their bodies undiscovered. It makes me so sad to think of them, and I realize that it wouldn’t be so hard, especially when I’m a bit older, to seek vengeance for a few more of them, maybe even to travel Europe avenging their deaths, strangling the stranglers and dropping them in ditches, charring my prints off them like Eve did off Billie, letting the symbolism and irony speak for me to the dead kids, to let them know they have been avenged.
In the meantime, I’m not too worried about being locked up. On the way, in the little bus, my social worker showed me the brochure, and they have a gym and lots of activities and classes. What better place to learn and train and ready myself for life ahead? I’ll miss my family, and Nathan, but those are my only regrets. If being locked up is a consequence of killing Eve and Nick, and of coming through for Billie, well, I guess that’s okay. I wouldn’t go back and do it differently.
At the kids’ prison, I walk down a long corridor with a squeaky, green floor like in school. The walls are white and have nothing on them, not like all the bookshelves, photographs, and paintings everywhere at home. We pass a room with four computers in it. I can see because every room has a window into the corridor running the length of its interior wall. Another room has a couple of kids a bit older than me hanging out. They are playing charades, sat on beanbags. We turn a corner into the bedroom area and they unlock a room for me.
“At first, you’ll be confined to several locked rooms at set times, but when we get you settled in you’ll have more freedom,” says the plump, nice lady who is showing me around.
“Great.” I smile. “I like the room.”
It’s bare and simple, with enough space to do push-ups and dance around, which is good because I intend to get very strong and work on my muscles while I’m here. The bed is by the window, and the room is on the ground floor, and the window has bars. The door opens outward but actually there is a metal gate as well, so they can lock you in your room but still hear you and see everything you’re doing. The gate retracts into the wall, which is quite cool. The lady, Lou, opens my door wide and holds my gate half-closed. “I’m going to leave you in here for half an hour, just to settle in. Is that okay?”
“Yep, sure.”
“Got everything you need?”
I pat my backpack, which is on my bed w
aiting for me, along with a small pile of new clothes. “Looks like it.”
“Again, you’ll be able to have some of your own clothes and things once you settle in.”
“I don’t mind,” I say, shrugging.
“All right, then,” she answers, sort of strangely, as if what I said was a weird thing to say. “I’ll come back and fetch you for dinner.”
“What are we having?”
“Roast.”
“Chicken, beef, or pork?”
“Erm, chicken.”
“Delicious!” I say, rubbing my tummy. “Mm.”
“Well, er…see you then,” Lou mumbles, and slides the gate out of the wall and across the doorway. The bars clank like in all the movies. It’s a satisfying sound, like resolution.
Acknowledgements
This novel is dedicated to the dead and missing girls. According to UNICEF, every ten minutes an adolescent girl dies a violent death.
May they not be so defined by their deaths and the short stretch of their years as to rest in the narrative of collective memory as angelic victims.
May we see them as fully formed, even flawed, complex human beings deserving of life without the necessity for canonization.
May we teach girls not to be obedient, digestible, and decorative, but to fight with teeth and mind and fists; to see themselves as potential victors, and not ineluctable victims.
Thank you, as ever, to my partner, family, and friends; especially to my great childhood love, Katie, for being cool with being fictionalized, and then quickly killed off.
Thank you to Sarah Branham at Sarah Branham Editorial, for early, and very, very useful, notes and encouragement.
Thank you to my agent Jo Unwin for her faith through a pretty dark time in my life, to my UK editor Sam Humphreys who brought this novel to life, and to the teams at Jo Unwin Literary Agency, Pan Macmillan, Mantle Books, and Picador in the UK.
Thank you to Tyson Cornell, Hailie Johnson, and all the rare birds at Rare Bird; most of all, Julia Callahan, who can tie cherry stalks with her teeth, sustain a four-hour discussion re: feminist perspectives on Peeta versus Gale, and is literally one of the coolest people I know.
And thank you to my mum, who taught me to fight back.
Reading Group Guide
What does having an eleven year old narrate this particular story add to the novel? How would the story differ if it were told from another character’s perspective—Thera’s parents, Nathan, or the detective in charge of the case?
Think about other young female would-be victims in contemporary novels and films. How do they act? What is different and the same about them and Thera? Do authors have a responsibility to portray girls in a certain way in this age?
Is Thera a reliable narrator?
“We’ve got to shield them from the details of the investigation.” What effect has Thera’s parents’ overprotection had on her? Should they have been more up-front with her about Billie’s death and the investigation? How do we talk to our children about adult concepts like consent?
What did your parents tell you about strangers? Was it good advice?
The media often paints young female murder victims as “innocent angels,” as if it’s their purity that makes them undeserving of death. How does Dead Girls take a stand against this in its portrayal of victims and young girls?
How culpable is Nathan? How do you think he was affected by what he saw? And what do you think the book is saying about how we learn—and how we should learn—about sex and sexuality?
Thera comes to understand how much adults try to claim her body by touching and commenting on it. How do we talk to our children about bodily autonomy in a positive way?
What can be done to change society so deaths like Billie’s don’t happen? Should the onus be on adults to prepare girls? To stop male perpetrators? Or to do both?
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