Mean girl_A dark, disturbing psychological thriller

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  They believed me, Corby thought.

  “What exactly do they think you did?” Molly asked. She didn’t look as cool as a few days ago. In response to recent events, Jane lost interest in her and began to communicate with Abigail, who wasn’t popular among students. However, she was great at school and teachers adored her. She was almost as invisible as Corby, but after Jane started to hang out with her, everyone noticed her existence. Jane also talked with Rob, who had a bad case of acne, but his dad was a lawyer with a great reputation and Rob wasn’t bullied mostly for that reason. Also maybe because he, just like Jane, had a black belt in karate. Jane needed someone who could help her in real life and not just make her look cool on a background of people.

  “How do I know? Probably they think I helped Ferro to disappear! What else do you think? Maybe you think I’m a suspect of a plane hijacking? I have no idea what happened to her! How could she set me up like this? She’s my best friend!”

  It was a recess and all students gathered in the classroom right after lunch rather than in the cafeteria. They had something to talk about. Four days had passed since Sylvia’s disappearance and no one knew what had happened. Except Corby. She sat at her desk with her algebra book opened and pretended not to be interested in what was happening when all her attention was actually focused on the noisy crowd of classmates. Although they didn’t make that much noise. No one dared to interrupt Jane River. She was the center of attention; she was the school god, pointing to the lucky ones who could come out of the darkness into the light with her permission.

  Jacob entered the classroom, threw his bag on his chair with a careless gesture, and sat down on the desk.

  “They asked a lot of questions about you, Glasgow.” Jane spun to face him. Corby saw everything with her peripheral vision. She saw everyone turning to him. As if a spotlight bowed in his direction to make him visible on the stage.

  “So what?” he said. “They asked me a lot of questions about you too.”

  “What kind of questions?” Jane folded her arms on her chest.

  “Sorry, I can’t disclose,” Jacob said with a half-smile and Corby chuckled inside. No one contradicted Jane.

  “What does it mean?” she protested. “Do you think it’s a joke? Do you think this is a time for jokes?”

  “Of course not,” Jacob said with his head down. When he looked back at Jane he didn’t smile, to Corby’s disappointment. She wanted him to laugh at Jane, but it was an impossible desire, like a horse on Santa’s list in December. Corby used to write the words real horse on a paper very carefully from the time she learned how to write and she still believed in miracles. She wrote letters as neatly as she could in case Santa didn’t understand her handwriting, but no horse appeared under the Christmas tree in their house.

  “Why did they ask you about me?” Jane approached Jacob and Corby looked up at them. She noticed something strange in his eyes, some light. He didn’t like Jane? Or the opposite, liked her very much? Did she like him? She was nothing special, why would he like her? She was so tiny and had no boobs!

  “I thought maybe you would know,” Jacob said.

  “How should I know? By the way, I’m a suspect now. My crazy mother didn’t let me out yesterday even to visit Abigail, because she was afraid I would go missing. How can I go missing if I make my friends disappear? Everyone is just so …”

  “My mother doesn’t let me go out either,” Molly said. “She thinks it’s dangerous.”

  “Yeah, let’s talk about you and your mother!” Jane snapped without turning to her.

  Looking at the girl, Corby noticed her cheeks were turning red as she bit her lip and looked around, fixing an angry gaze on Corby.

  “What are you looking at, Mackentile?” Molly shouted and then ran out of the classroom. Well, she didn’t run, but rather went out very fast. Corby buried her head in the textbook again, but didn’t see a single word. When Jane started to talk, she turned slightly in her direction. By the tone of her voice she didn’t think Jane would care about her at the moment. She was concentrating on different things and a different person.

  “Stupid Sylvia,” Jane said and took another step toward Jacob, almost touching his knees. He continued to stare at her and his eyes seemed darker now when Corby glanced at him. She didn’t like this scene and pursed her lips and clenched her fists in anger. She didn’t even realize what she was angry at, but she was ready to throw herself on Jane or at least growl.

  “So, you don’t know?” Jane asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jacob answered.

  Corby also didn’t know how much longer this disgusting scene would last as two of her classmates (one whom she didn’t like at all and one whom she liked very much) burned each other with their eyes, if not for the bell.

  Jane took two steps back without looking away from Glasgow then stopped for a moment, turned, and walked to her desk. She had a smile on her lips that Corby liked even less than her gaze and the scene as a whole.

  “If they call me for questioning again, I’m going to kill someone,” Jane said, sitting down at her desk.

  Or I, Corby thought as she watched Molly, who returned to the class. She didn’t look at Corby or at anyone else. She just passed over to her desk with her chin up and her shoulders wide and sat down.

  “Idiot,” Corby whispered, but in her mind, at this time, she was already building a plan. If everything went the way she wanted, soon she would not have any enemies.

  CHAPTER 21

  Mom was late, as usual, and Corby went to the football field to wait for her. She had planned to sit on a bench and read the book for her literature class. Animal Farm by George Orwell. It was not a mandatory book, but one on a sheet of recommended reading for Corby and she liked the description. It was quite warm and windless, great weather to spend time outside. She had unpleasant memories of the stadium after the last run-in with Jane and Sylvia, but now Jane had other problems and it was unlikely she would think of Corby. Other problems and other interests. Sylvia wasn’t here and Jane turned her attention to Jacob. He reciprocated and Corby hated Jane for this. Before, she had been afraid of her and simply didn’t like her, but now she hated her. It turned out that she didn’t really lie to the detectives, but simply suggested a possible variant of events as a fortune-teller looking into a crystal ball. Could it be that she had attracted this turn of affairs? That would be terrible. In any case, she intended to change the situation as soon as possible.

  Corby had barely sat down, taken out the book, and opened it to the first page, when she heard voices. The voices of several guys. They talked, laughed, cursed, and were getting closer with every second. Corby pressed into the bench. From surprise and fear, she immediately lost touch with the world and the ability to think. The crowd of boys was much worse than a murder. How could she forget that the players had their practice after school today? What was she thinking? Surely there would be girls too: cheerleaders and fans, the ones who dreamed of getting a guy on the football team.

  She didn’t move and met them with her eyes when they appeared in her field of vision. At first they didn’t notice her sitting in a corner of the front row without even a twitch, but then Dick Bronson, the team’s captain, turned to her abruptly.

  “Look who we have here!” he shouted. “Fresh meat!”

  “Box of meat,” Tyson Berry said. He was in Corby’s Spanish class.

  Corby didn’t see any of them. The only person whose face she could grasp through her shroud of panic was Jacob Glasgow. After the scene between him and Jane, Corby recognized him as her first love, though it was hard to do. He would never find out about it and he liked Jane. He liked Jane, with her dark hair, skinny chicken legs, and no boobs. It didn’t stop Corby from thinking about him. She had to admit that she had a crush on him because her heart beat stronger at the sight of him, heat spread all over her body, her hands beaded with moisture, and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. What else was that feeling if not love? She recognized it,
she was afraid of it, she was afraid that he would realize. She saw only him at this moment, in the open field of the stadium.

  “I like boxes of meat! My favorite!” Bronson screamed. “Want to cheer us up, fatty? Cheer to this!” He grabbed at his dick that was stuffed in his uniform pants, and pretended to shake it.

  All the boys laughed. Berry leaned forward and laughed with both of his hands on his knees, it was so funny to him. Jacob laughed too and that interrupted Corby’s hypnotic stupor. She closed her book, got up, and strode out of the stadium hunching her shoulders. She wanted to sink through the ground, but unfortunately it wasn’t possible.

  “Where are you going, babe?” someone shouted.

  There was the sound of a whistle and then the loud voice of Coach Wilson.

  “What are you doing over there? Start your practice! Get to it! Now!”

  The guys immediately turned their backs on Corby as if she had never existed. She didn’t exist for them. She was just a small obstacle in the way, which one could kick to get a laugh, or an insect that could be crushed or side stepped. Someone or something that was easily forgettable as soon as it disappeared from view. Corby turned for a moment and saw Jacob following her with his gaze. Corby pursed her lips and hurried away. Her head was spinning with ideas, a lot of ideas. If Jacob could read minds, he would not like any of them.

  CHAPTER 22

  “He thinks he can get away with it!”

  Corby couldn’t sit still and circled around the fridge, taking two steps to the right and two steps to the left. She couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, couldn’t eat, couldn’t calm down. All she could think about was Jacob. Sneaky, awful Jacob. She also thought of awful, awful Jane, but less, much less.

  As soon as she came into the shop, she met her dad. For some reason he stayed there longer than usual. He asked how she was doing; about her school and friends—the usual set of questions that parents asked children to show their interest in their kids’ lives when they didn’t even listen to what these same children were telling them. Today the investigation went with special predilection and with bigger, sincere attention in his eyes, probably because of yesterday’s scene at the table and after the conversation with her mother. Corby didn’t want to talk at all and she answered all of his questions with short yeses and noes. When the interrogation was over (Corby couldn’t call it otherwise), Dad suddenly asked about their surveillance camera.

  “It isn’t working again,” he said, looking at the useless device in the top right corner of the store.

  “I don’t think it ever worked,” Corby said, adjusting the new vase with artificial flowers on the table. White roses. She didn’t know when they were changed. She used to notice all the changes in the shop, but now— nothing. Her only interest was the refrigerator and the small freezer inside it. She hoped that her dad wasn’t going to change his religious beliefs again and start selling piglets.

  “Really? I thought it was fine.” Father shook his head. “I neglected my grandfather’s business. It’s embarrassing. What am I here? An empty shell. I just support life, but what kind of life it is, is not important.”

  “Why do you say that? We’ve had the same customers for years and no one complains.”

  “Okay, okay, you are right.” Father scratched his head. “I need to call someone to take a look at it.” He was about to leave, but turned back to Corby. “Gaby said she found a lot of blood on the floor in the butcher room and she washed there the day before. She said she had never seen so much blood on the floor before. I have to talk to Stephen.”

  “I have no idea what she’s talking about. Actually, I remember hearing Gaby complain about having back pain and poor vision.”

  “Is that true? I didn’t know.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t see well. I think she’s just afraid to tell you because you might fire her.”

  “Why would I fire her? If she wants to work, she can work. If the shop is clean, I don’t care. She does a good job with that. But “too much blood?” I don’t even know what that means in our store.”

  Corby shrugged.

  And now, an hour later, she shrugged again, recalling the scene.

  “I was in a hurry, all right? I probably missed something and Gaby had to tell my father right away. Who asked her?”

  Corby stopped in front of the freezer and observed her friends. They were her friends now, weren’t they? Her best friends. They lay side by side and didn’t resent her. They listened to her and complied. Corby removed the plastic wrap from Sylvia’s head and body, because it looked too weird, but left her lying on her stomach, because she didn’t want to look at her face. She had beautiful hair and it was nice to see it.

  “How could he laugh at me, along with the rest of them? I don’t care about Dick Bronson because he always acts like a dick, but Jacob ... He apologized once, right? He felt bad about what he did and he apologized. That’s all! What can I expect from him? What? He hasn’t shown his good attitude towards me once since that message. Why am I so angry at him and not at Bronson or Berry?”

  Corby closed her eyes and sat down on the edge of the freezer, wrapping her jacket tightly around her body.

  “I didn’t do anything bad to him and he apologized to me. I liked him after that... I liked him so much. I still like him. What should I do now? I think I have a huge crush on him. That’s just horrible.” Corby suddenly began to cry. “Why did it happen? I haven’t loved anyone since kindergarten. I always liked him, but not like this. Not like now. I can’t think when he’s around. Everything’s fuzzy in my head. Those bastards humiliated me in front of him. That Bronson. Maybe I should kill him first.”

  Corby stopped crying and started thinking. She’d had no personal conflicts with Bronson, ever. He probably didn’t even know of her existence until today, despite the fact that they had a couple of classes together. The same with Berry, though he knew her nickname. Jacob was different. He laughed at her, but he also found her phone number and sent her a message. A private message. He apologized. He translated their relationship to another level. If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him and wouldn’t have experienced a scene like this so deeply.

  “He’s just a jerk,” Corby said. “A pig. Do you know where pigs belong? They are meat, so they belong in a butcher shop.”

  Getting her phone, she found the message from Jacob and opened a new field to post a reply.

  “Messages can be traced,” she said thoughtfully. “Even if I break the phone and throw it away. Or not? I need to learn about that. I think I saw somewhere in a movie that you can trace every single message. Who it came from and all that. But he sent me a message first, they will know what it was about. I can just invite him for a talk.”

  We have to discuss it. Don’t tell anyone.

  Corby typed and brought a finger over the Send button.

  “He might tell everyone.” She added,

  It’s about Sylvia.

  Even if he tells someone there’s nothing to worry about. She could say that it was a mistake and she meant Vera and that she had already told the police everything. The detectives could get mad at her, but not for long. She was only a child and didn’t know what she could and couldn’t say.

  And then what? Then she would have to meet him face to face. She would have to look into his eyes, listen to his voice. Was he going to be rude to her like at school? Was he going to laugh at her? She wanted their conversation to go that way so it would be easier for her to raise an ax. This time she wasn’t going to turn it blunt side down.

  Only, could she do it? It was awful with Sylvia, but Corby couldn’t stand her, and she loved Jacob. Maybe she just thought she loved him, but she didn’t really?

  “He deserves it. They all deserve it. If he only knew how I felt today. I wanted to kill myself!”

  Afraid she would change her mind, Corby pressed the button, and the message leapt off the input stripe and onto the screen. Corby closed her eyes. Her heart was jumping out of
her chest, her breathing was sporadic. She clutched the phone so hard it hurt her hand. Would he answer or not? Answer or not?

  It seemed to her that an eternity had passed, but when she looked at the screen after the notification of a received message, it was less than a minute.

  Her hand shook when she opened the small envelope in the upper left corner of the phone.

  Ok. When?

  Corby quickly printed the answer.

  I will tell you at school.

  Another couple of seconds of waiting until the next message.

  Ok.

  Corby re-read the short conversation a couple of times. She smiled and hid the phone in her pocket. She wanted to look forever at those two okays, but she had to go home. She would have time to do that later.

  “Okay, girls,” she said as she stood, “time to go to bed. I don’t know if I’ll have time to visit you tomorrow. A very interesting life begins. Perhaps very soon, Sylvia, you’ll find yourself side by side with the boy of your dreams. You will be together forever.”

  Corby laughed when she closed the lid of the freezer box, but cried when she came out of the shop. She didn’t want to kill Jacob, really, but if he disappeared from her life forever, from her field of view, it would be much better and safer for her to finish school.

  CHAPTER 23