by James Dawson
‘I’ve made my feelings about the graveyard clear, have I not?’ Bobbie thought hanging out in the graveyard was disrespectful on about a hundred different levels of wrong.
‘Yeah, I know, but Mark’s there. He was kinda cute. I liked his arms. They were some … masculine arms he had right there.’ Here was the real reason the Piper’s Hall Ladies came into Oxsley – the fleeting possibility of an XY chromosome.
Bobbie’s attention pricked up. If Mark was there … ‘Is Grace with Caitlin?’
‘You mean is Caine with Mark?’ They trundled past the war memorial and started towards the church.
‘That’s not what I said.’
Naya grinned. ‘You know my abuelita used to say I was psychic … ’
‘Caine is cute.’ Bobbie rearranged the scarf around her neck. ‘But Caine is also with Grace. The end. I’m so not little Susie Homebreaker.’
‘Girl, there’s no home to break. The gossip as I heard it was that Caine was going out with some girl in his year at Radley High and it totally mashed his head so he dumped her. He’s a free agent. Just because Grace likes him doesn’t mean anything.’
Bobbie’s heart did a curious flippy thing at that information. She snorted. ‘It means she would rip out my eyes and wear them as earrings.’
‘Don’t be scared of Grace Brewer-Fay. She’s all talk.’
‘The heads on pikes outside Christie House say otherwise.’
Naya cackled – she had such a filthy laugh, it was fabulous. ‘Come on, Bob. Let’s go stare at boys for an hour. It’s biological destiny, why fight it?’
‘God, as if Caine even knows I’m alive. He’d never go for someone like me in a million years.’
Naya looked at her like she’d sucked on a lemon. ‘Don’t make me go all Tyra on your ass, Rowe. You are a rare and beautiful pearl.’
‘Oh you are so full of crap! But okay, let’s go.’ Bobbie caved in in return for Naya buying her an iced bun from the tea shop. It’s the little things.
St Paul’s was a decaying, much-weathered village church on the road leading out of Oxsley. It was a squat structure with a moss-covered loping roof and square steeple – no spire – but four vicious-looking spikes on each corner. The unkempt church grounds rippled with wild grasses and weeds, the headstones standing at drunken angles where the ground had subsided with time. The place had that abandoned, end-of-days feel that put Bobbie on edge. The sprawling graveyard tumbled over the land between Piper’s Hall and Oxsley – literally dead space. Bobbie could see the nearest gravestones from her bedroom.
The gaggle of noisy ‘youths’, as the churchwarden called them, was in stark contrast: a rainbow of American Apparel hoodies and fluoro trainers. Grace and Caitlin (her second-in-command) were perched on a stone sarcophagus, swinging their legs. With them there were four guys in total, two strangers joining Mark and Caine. As they entered the churchyard through the lychgate, Bobbie saw Caine was separated from the rest of the group, practising stunts on one of those tiny little bikes with bars on the back wheel.
‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Naya announced their arrival.
‘Hi!’ Caitlin waved them over. Caitlin was a lovely girl somewhere under all the make-up, but her parents paid full-fee – a polite way of saying she hadn’t exactly passed the entrance exam with flying colours. It was a good thing, then, that she was as pretty as any Disney princess. Her looks and minted parents had ensured she’d been initiated into The Elites. ‘Hey, everyone. This is Charlie and Tom … you already know Caine and Mark, right? This is Naya and Bobbie. They go to our school too,’ she said in her bubblegum voice.
‘Bobbie,’ said the ginger one, Tom. ‘Is that short for something?’
‘Yeah.’ Bobbie was bored already. Clearly they’d been invited for pairing purposes. Gross. ‘It’s short for Bobbilene.’
Behind her, Caine laughed, hopping off his bike.
‘Wow.’ Tom didn’t get it. ‘Your parents are way harsh.’
‘Tom, you div, she’s messing with you.’ Caine joined them. ‘Is it Roberta?’
Bobbie nodded with a shy smile. Suddenly the ‘ironic’ mittens-on-a-string hanging out of her coat sleeves weren’t so ironic and she feared she looked dangerously like someone on a day out with their carer.
Grace took a swig of the cheap white wine they’d illicitly bought at the corner shop in Oxsley. ‘Anyway,’ she said,‘Bobbie doesn’t have parents. She’s a test-tube baby.’
Oh God. Bobbie prayed for the earth to swallow her up. Better yet, she wished she could invent a time machine to go back in time to stop herself telling Naya about her parentage, therefore removing from history the fateful night when Naya had got drunk on Malibu and blabbed to Grace.
‘What?’ Mark said, attempting to keep a football off the ground.
‘Grace, don’t be a bitch,’ Naya snarled.
‘It’s fine.’ Bobbie drew herself tall (which was still only shoulder height to Naya or Caine). She’d learned early that people could only exploit a chink in your armour if you let them find it. ‘I was conceived by artificial insemination.’
‘What?’ Tom said, clearly not the sharpest tack.
Bobbie took another deep breath. ‘My dad is basically an anonymous sperm cell.’ She went on. ‘I like to call him Spermy. I also like to imagine a giant sperm cell coming home at the end of the working day with a bowler hat and briefcase.’
By this point Naya and Caine were in hysterics. It was possible Caitlin got the joke or that she laughed because everyone was laughing. Even Grace seemed quietly impressed.
‘You’re weird. But funny. I like it,’ said Charlie – who, with his floppy hair and pudding face, looked like the chubby joker type himself.
‘It’s not weird.’ Caine sat back against a headstone, opening a family-sized bag of Haribo and getting stuck in. ‘It’s just families, ain’t it? They’re all messed up. My mum left my dad for my uncle and then my dad tried to stab ’em both.’
Bobbie laughed despite herself. It was the way he delivered the news, like most people would deliver ‘I have two sisters and a pet cat’. ‘Seriously?’ she asked.
‘Yep. That’s how we ended up down here in the middle of nowhere. I’m from Croydon.’
‘Wow,’ said Naya. ‘We’re like the screwed-up parent gang.’
‘My parents are so dull it’s not even funny,’ Grace put in.
‘No way.’ Caine bit a jelly ring in half. ‘The ones that look normal are secretly the weirdest.’
Naya turned to her blonde nemesis. ‘So, Grace, I wonder what kinky little secrets your –’ She stopped because that was when the blood started to gush out of her nose.
Chapter 5
Coincidence
Lots of things happened at once. Caitlin responded with an ‘ew’, pulling her legs onto the stone coffin. Conversely, Grace shot forward, unbothered by the blood and ready to help. Caine sprang to his feet. It took Bobbie a second to snap into action and reach for her friend.
‘Oh God,’ Naya gurgled.
‘Pipe down. Tip your head back and pinch your nose.’ Grace was surprisingly good in a crisis, it transpired.
‘Are you sure you’re meant to do that?’ Bobbie rummaged in her satchel for tissues.
Grace looked at her as if she’d only just realised she was present. ‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘It’s fine.’ Naya accidentally smeared lumpy red-purple blood across her cheek. ‘I used to get nosebleeds all the time when I was a kid.’
Charlie quietly disengaged from the group, looking pale and peaky at the sight of so much blood. Blood was now gushing from Naya’s nose, thick droplets splattering onto the path, the dots rapidly joining. Naya took a handful of tissues from Bobbie and held it to her face, tilting her head towards the sky.
Bobbie saw spots of blood on her scarf where Naya must have splashed her. A third spot landed on the grey wool. That was when she realised it was coming from her own nose.
‘What the … ?’ She turned to see Cai
ne dabbing at his nose too. A channel of blood ran from his left nostril to his full top lip. Bobbie held her fingers to her nose, but warm, viscous liquid trickled through the gaps.
‘Oh my God.’ Grace’s face contorted. ‘Have you been sniffing something? What did you take?’
‘Nothing!’ Bobbie cried, raising her already ruined scarf to her nose. The blood seeped into the wool, a fast-growing crimson cloud.
‘Oh give over,’ Caine snapped, wiping the blood away with the back of his hand. His didn’t seem quite so bad.
‘This is a thing,’ Tom explained. ‘It’s to do with high pressure. A lot of people get nosebleeds when a storm’s on its way.’
Naya pulled her tissues away and examined the damage. Her face was covered in gore. ‘I think it’s stopping.’
Bobbie felt her nose and gave an experimental sniff. Hers too seemed to have run dry.
‘Do you get nosebleeds too?’ Naya asked.
‘Never,’ Bobbie said. ‘I never had one before.’
‘Me neither,’ added Caine. ‘Except one time I got hit with a basketball.’
‘Are you okay?’ Caitlin looked horrified, holding her knees to her chin and grimacing through mascara-laden lashes.
‘I think so,’ Naya replied. ‘Man. Pretty intense.’
Grace eyed them suspiciously. ‘That’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never heard of synchronised bleeding before.’
‘I’m telling you, man, it’s the weather.’
Mark laughed and gave a slow hand clap. ‘Oh I get it. Very funny.’
‘What?’ Caine looked to his friend.
‘It’s a wind-up, innit? Cos of last night. Mate … you properly had me. How did you do it? Did you squirt the blood up there, or have you got like pellets, like on TV?’
The penny dropped for Bobbie. The dare. ‘Bloody Mary.’ As she said it, blood ran into her mouth. Nothing else tastes like blood: coppery, oddly expensive-tasting.
‘Oh I see.’ Grace pouted. ‘Very funny. Psych.’ She didn’t sound impressed.
A frown furrowed Caine’s handsome face. ‘Mate, it’s not a joke, I promise.’
That half knocked the smile off Mark’s face, but his eyes said he was still expecting a raucous ‘GOT YA!’ any second now.
Bobbie had to admit, it was a pretty big coincidence. If it had been just her and Naya, she wouldn’t have been too concerned, but three of them? The same three who’d said that name in front of the mirror. Her eyes suddenly stung.
She chastised herself; that was what made coincidence a thing – you recognised them because they happened all the time. One time she’d run into her cousin outside Topshop on Oxford Street even though they’d had no idea that each were going to be in London that day. That had been pure coincidence and no one had blamed a ghostly curse.
Nonetheless, the same mixture of fear, disbelief and smeared blood read on each of their faces – even Grace looked a little spooked. ‘It must have been a sympathy nosebleed.’ Bobbie tried to laugh it off, adopting her chirpiest tone.
‘Aw, you’re such a good friend,’ Naya said, trying in vain to clean her face – she looked like one of the flesh-hungry zombies from the books she liked reading. ‘You couldn’t let me have the spotlight, even for a minute, could ya?’ Naya winked, acknowledging the irony.
‘Come on.’ Bobbie took her friend’s hand. ‘Let’s go to the tea shop to clean up.’ As they walked away, Bobbie saw the look in Caine’s eyes. His expression was grim – the local boy unable to laugh it off. Saying nothing, he watched them go and Bobbie felt his eyes on her all the way down the path.
On a Sunday evening, the girls of Piper’s Hall were expected to dress smartly for Sunday roast in the great dining hall, which was also attended by the school priest. Each week he led prayers, which everybody lip-synched or ignored altogether. He sat with Dr Price, Mrs Craddock and Grace on the head table. Dr Price politely smiled and nodded as he moaned about the lack of faith in today’s society.
Bobbie, as usual, sat with Naya and a few of the more pleasant girls from Brontë House. She wore a dotty vintage dress with her favourite cardigan – a huge woolly beast that had once belonged to her dead grandfather. ‘I’m telling you,’ Naya recounted her graveyard ordeal, ‘it was really scary. I totally thought I was gonna croak it.’
‘Did you see a bright white tunnel?’ Bobbie grinned. ‘You are such a drama llama. It was only a nosebleed.’ Bobbie refilled her water glass from a battered metal jug. By the time they’d convinced the old lady who ran the tea shop that they hadn’t been in a gang fight (or wanted to eat her brains) and cleaned off the blood, they’d had to head back to Piper’s Hall to spruce themselves up for the roast dinner.
‘Still. It really freaked me out. I like actually feel nauseous.’ Naya turned directly to Bobbie, abandoning her sticky toffee pudding and custard. She looked at her with big chocolate-button eyes. ‘Bobbie, if I die, will you make sure loads of people come to my funeral?’
Bobbie chuckled. ‘Of course I will. What are friends for?’
‘That’s like my greatest fear. That no one would care if I died.’
There was a glimmer of genuine sadness in Naya’s eyes. Every once in a while the bluster cleared and Bobbie got glimpses of how skeletal Naya’s esteem really was. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll be there, okay? And I’ll make sure they play all your favourite songs, even the embarrassing ones.’
‘You’re the best.’
Bobbie was distracted by Kellie Huang, who wore the shortest, most buttock-skimming skirt ever, approaching the top table. That was a bit of a no-no while people were still eating. The skirt was a no-no at any time.
‘What’s up with Kellie?’ Naya asked.
‘Shh, I’m earwigging. I imagine she has a cold bottom.’
While Naya giggled, Bobbie tuned in to what they were saying. Kellie spoke to Mrs Craddock and Dr Price at the same time. ‘ … I think she might really be ill.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Mrs Craddock asked. Bobbie guessed they were talking about Sadie, who roomed with Kellie.
‘I don’t know. She was kinda freaking out though.’
‘Kind of freaking out?’ Dr Price half smiled. ‘Could you be more specific?’
Bobbie knew Sadie hadn’t been well when they’d seen her at breakfast. Kellie went on. ‘I dunno. She wouldn’t leave the dorm though.’
Dr Price looked to the housemistress. ‘I’ll check on her after dinner,’ said Mrs Craddock.
The problem with having a writer’s brain, Bobbie thought, is that you start seeing patterns and relationships where there are only boring facts. Sadie was ill, they’d had nosebleeds. They’d all been in that bathroom at midnight last night. Suddenly her stomach shrivelled up like a raisin and she couldn’t face her pudding.
Coincidences. More coincidences. When it’s icy, people slip over. This doesn’t make ice evil. The fact they’d all been sneaking around in the middle of the night probably explained why they were all feeling off colour today. Bobbie cursed her overactive imagination for arriving at ‘haunted mirror’ before ‘logical explanation’. There was always a logical explanation.
After dinner, Bobbie changed into her pyjamas and fished her writing pad out from under her bed. It was a camel-colour suede notebook that her mum had brought back after filming an episode of some BBC drama in Norway, and even the touch of the thing made her want to write in it.
Naya was trying to gain access to Sadie, so Bobbie had the dorm room to herself. She wrote best to Danny Elfman’s melancholy choral scores, which now played in the background. The suites were brooding and dramatic, a lot like her prose.
Where I once felt warm, spongy contentment inside, there was now only a hollow absence. An abyss of sorts. Yes, that was it – a void like a black hole in the coldest corner of space, she wrote. It was as if one night, as I slept, some unseen hand had pulled a plug within and all the joy seeped away, leaving me empty. Eternally drained.
Bobbie chewed he
r pen. She always wrote by hand first, only typing up the sections she was happy with. She’d once uploaded a short story to an online writing colony and it’d had like six thousand views. As soon as she got out of Piper’s Hall and didn’t have so much needless school writing to do, she’d start working on a novel – the only problem being she had more ideas in her notebook than she could ever hope to feasibly turn into novels.
Naya entered the room – her pyjama shorts revealing miles of gorgeous olive leg. Her endless black hair was twisted into a knot on top of her head where she’d washed her face. ‘What ya doin?’
‘Writing … ’
‘Is it the one you were talking about?’
‘The suicide one? Yeah.’
‘Get your Plath on, girl.’
Bobbie laughed. ‘Oh I intend to. How’s Sadie?’ She rested her pen inside the notebook and closed it up – she’d rather die than show someone her writing at draft stage. What’s more, she couldn’t deny a ping of nosiness about their classmate.
‘Between you and me it looks like worst case of PMS I’ve seen in a while – she’s howling and sobbing and saying she wants to go home. Girlfriend needs a hot-water bottle and a Nurofen, stat.’
Bobbie rolled off her bed. ‘The sympathy spring has truly run dry for you, hasn’t it? I’m gonna go brush my teeth.’ She dragged her wash-bag off the dresser and sloped out of the dorm, the floor tiles freezing cold on her bare feet.
The hallway was deserted. Mrs Craddock had already turned the hall lights out so only a pale glow filtered through from the dorms. On Sundays it was standard for girls to retire to their rooms after supper. Last scraps of homework were hurriedly completed ready for the next day and the dreaded Sunday night/Monday morning malaise fell over the dorms. As Bobbie padded down the hall, her warm feet stuck to the floor, making a tiny suction noise as she went.
The bathroom was empty but smelled of fresh mint toothpaste and perfumy floral shower gel. As ever, the room was humid, never entirely drying out. Someone must have just finished. The shower head made a steady, echoing drip into the cubicle. Hating to see water wasted, Bobbie reached into the stall and squeezed the lever tighter. She frowned. The drip continued. It must be inside the pipes somewhere, out of her control.
