Looking Glass Girl

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘I believe Mr and Mrs Hunter are away for the weekend,’ WPC James says. ‘An older sister was left in charge, but it’s not clear whether she was on the premises at the time of the accident. We have informed family services …’

  ‘But Alice is OK?’ Laura Beech presses. ‘It’s not serious?’

  ‘As I explained, she has a head injury,’ PC Lewis states, unable to meet her gaze. ‘The doctors are in the best position to explain what’s going on.’

  ‘This can’t be happening,’ Laura Beech says. ‘I want to see her – I have to see her now!’

  ‘We can take you to the hospital, if you’d like?’ PC Lewis offers. ‘Or you can drive yourself, if you feel OK to do that.’

  ‘I’ll drive,’ Mark Beech says. ‘Nathan, mate, go and put on something warm, and I’ll just–’

  He shrugs helplessly and runs up the stairs in search of shoes and trousers.

  The two police officers drive away from the house. Less than two minutes later, the Beech family is out of the house and in their own car, huddled and uneasy, driving through the night.

  ‘Is Alice going to die?’ Nathan asks into the silence, and Laura Beech begins to cry.

  4

  Alice

  ‘Alice, my name is Dr Fleet. Can you hear me? You’ve been in the wars, I’m afraid. You’ve had a fall and taken quite a knock to the head, and I think you’ve hurt your arm as well. We’re going to do some preliminary tests and assessments; see how best we can help. I’d like you to open your eyes now if you can hear me, Alice. Just for a moment; open your eyes …’

  ‘Alice?’ the voice says, and someone shakes me gently by the shoulders. ‘Wake up! Wake up! We’re late!’

  I sneak a glance through half-closed eyes and gasp in horror at what I see; white fur, a twitching nose, long ears that droop and graze softly against my cheek. A white rabbit in a waistcoat and jacket is leaning over me, huffing and sighing and rolling its eyes.

  The White Rabbit. From Alice in Wonderland.

  I am not joking.

  ‘Alice? Come on!’ it says, sounding annoyed. ‘We’re late!’

  I know it’s a dream, of course. I’m not scared.

  I sit up straight and open my eyes …

  Year Seven

  I thought that perhaps Elaine and Yaz were punishing me, making a point with this whole ‘giving me space’ thing. They were annoyed that I’d been busy in the holidays, maybe a little jealous that I’d been picked for the drama club summer school, that I’d been able to get to know Luke better, but I was sure they’d get over it. I thought that at any moment they might look across and pull those stupid, comic faces we used to make when we were little, say, ‘Ha! Fooled you!’ and we could all be proper friends again, instead of being in this horrible semi-detached limbo where they’d throw me the occasional smile and ask how my day had been, and then walk away and leave me. That didn’t happen.

  Elaine and Yaz got friendly with two girls called Savannah Hunter and Erin Stewart who sat near them. Erin was clever and confident, and Savannah was one of those girls everybody wants to know; she was tall and pretty with waist length caramel-coloured hair and golden-brown skin. She had the kind of easy confidence that made the St Elizabeth’s uniform look like high fashion on her, and she was always laughing.

  ‘She used to go to my old dance class,’ a quiet girl called Serena said to me in the changing rooms one day after PE. ‘Savannah. Her parents are really rich and her mum takes her to a beauty salon every month to get a spray tan and her nails and eyebrows done. Pathetic, huh? She’s just fake, fake, fake.’

  I wasn’t sure about that. I thought that maybe Serena was jealous, because she had thick glasses and unplucked eyebrows and nails that were bitten down to the quick. Her skin wasn’t golden-brown but the kind of white that looks bluish in the winter, mottled pink with the start of teenage acne.

  I was pretty sure that Savannah would look just as good without the spray tan and the pencilled-in eyebrows. It was something to do with the way she laughed; the way she shook out her hair like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  ‘She’s a bully,’ Serena whispered. ‘She has a mean streak. If you’re not in her group, watch out!’

  Savannah didn’t look like a bully, but I was worried all the same. What if she reeled in Elaine and Yaz and then ditched them? I didn’t want that to happen, but maybe, if it did, they’d realize what true friendship was and come back to me. I still thought things could work out, even then.

  I looked at the advice pages of my favourite teen magazine for ideas for reviving a flagging friendship; it recommended talking things through, suggesting exciting new things to do together, reminiscing about the happy times we’d shared.

  So I tried. I waited until Savannah and Erin weren’t around and one morning in late September I walked right up to Elaine and Yaz, smiling my brightest smile and trying to pretend I wasn’t terrified they’d laugh in my face.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I noticed there’s a youth club starting down at the community centre – every Thursday evening, seven till nine thirty. Music, dance, sport, crafts … it sounds OK. We always said there should be one. D’you fancy it?’

  Elaine and Yaz had often grumbled that our town needed a place for teenagers to get together; a place to listen to music, hang out, meet boys. I thought this would appeal to them, but they just looked at me, blank and disapproving, like I’d suggested we take up macramé or stamp collecting.

  ‘Youth club?’ Yaz said. ‘I don’t think so, Alice. That’s so lame. It’s for losers. Well, yeah, actually, you might like it – but we already have a social life, thanks very much.’

  I reeled from the words as if I’d been slapped.

  Elaine shrugged and smiled as if she didn’t quite approve of what Yaz was saying, and later on I saw her alone by the lockers. I screwed up every last bit of courage I possessed and walked over.

  ‘Elaine?’ I asked. ‘I thought we were friends. Just what exactly did I do to make you and Yaz hate me so much?’

  She had the grace to blush. ‘We don’t actually hate you, Alice,’ she said, as if explaining something complicated to a small and particularly stupid child. ‘Don’t be silly! We’ve just grown apart, yeah? It happens. It’s nothing personal.’

  It felt personal to me. These were the girls I’d known since Reception class, the girls I’d shared my hopes, dreams and fears with. We’d shivered together in a badly-pitched tent on Brownie camp-outs, whispering secrets late into the night. I’d held Yaz’s hand, back when her gran died, wiped her tears, stood next to her at the funeral in a black dress and shiny shoes. I’d listened over and over to Elaine’s troubles round about the time that her parents were divorcing, then listened all over again when her mum moved in with the horrible boyfriend.

  I knew that Yaz loved Harry Styles and peanut butter KitKat Chunky bars and that she had wanted a dog ever since she was tiny, but knew it would never happen because her dad was allergic to pet fur. I knew that Elaine wanted to be a top model and live in Paris and wear scarlet shoes with bows on the ankles and six-inch heels, and that she wanted to marry Luke Miller, or at least go out with him.

  She sometimes got huffy and moody if she didn’t get what she wanted, but nobody was perfect, right?

  Yaz and Elaine knew me, too; they knew that I still slept with a lamp on even now, because I was scared of the dark, that I was afraid of ghosts and couldn’t watch horror films because they gave me nightmares. They knew that I dreamed of going to drama school, of being an actress one day.

  ‘We used to have some great times,’ I reminded Elaine. ‘Rehearsing for the play; me as Alice and you as playing-card soldiers …’

  Elaine just rolled her eyes and shrugged.

  ‘So are we friends?’ I pressed. ‘Are we just taking some time out, like you said? Giving ourselves some space?’

  ‘It’s not working out,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘Savvy doesn’t like us hanging out with losers. Not that I think yo
u’re a loser or anything! It’s just … well, like I said. Nothing personal.’

  ‘Savvy doesn’t like it?’ I echoed, and Elaine looked guilty, embarrassed.

  Savannah had reeled them in all right, and what she said was law. Our friendship was over, finally, with no hope of reprieve. I hated Savannah then. I hated her so much it was like an ache inside me.

  Tears stung my eyes.

  ‘You can always hang out with your new friends from drama club,’ Elaine suggested awkwardly. ‘You don’t need us.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ I said bitterly. ‘It was nice knowing you. I think.’

  I went back to the teen magazine for more advice; it said that if all else failed, the best plan was to let go and move on. Well, let’s just say that advice failed too.

  The following week, Nick from the drama club told us that they’d had their funding cut by the council and would be closing. My new friends vanished overnight, scattered across the town in their different schools.

  ‘Keep in touch, Alice, OK?’ Luke Miller said, scribbling his landline number on a scrap of paper because he didn’t have a mobile. I kept that scrap of paper in my pocket for a year, until it disintegrated, but I never did call him. I didn’t have the nerve.

  At St Elizabeth’s, even Serena got fed up with hanging out with me and attached herself to a group of science club kids.

  I had nothing to do but watch my old friends sparkle and shine. Savvy and Erin were pretty and popular and cool, and very soon Yaz and Elaine were, too.

  Me? I was the geek, the loner.

  I was nobody at all.

  5

  Ardenley General Hospital

  Accident and Emergency is not a good place to be in the early hours of a spring Sunday morning. The Beech family have to dodge a drunk singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in the middle of the waiting room, and wait at the desk while a young man with a black eye and a cut lip yells at the receptionist before storming away into the night. A nurse with a clipboard ushers them along a grey corridor lit by flickering fluorescent strip lights.

  They walk past a row of curtained cubicles. Some of the curtains are open, and Mark Beech glimpses a small boy hunched over on a trolley, crying; an elderly woman having her blood pressure taken; a worried mother pacing the floor with a screaming toddler.

  The nurse leads them into a small waiting room with soft chairs and gossip magazines spread out across a coffee table, gesturing for them to sit. ‘Dr Fleet will be with you shortly,’ she says kindly. ‘He can explain how Alice is doing.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Laura Beech pleads. ‘I need to see her! Now! Please?’

  ‘All in good time,’ the nurse says kindly. ‘Help yourself to tea or coffee.’

  The door clicks softly behind her as she leaves.

  Alice’s little brother slumps on to a chair and begins to kick absently at the coffee table. For a minute there is no sound except for the thump-thump of his trainers against the underside of the table, getting gradually louder and more forceful.

  ‘For God’s sake, Nathan!’ Mark Beech yells abruptly. ‘What are you doing? Your sister is seriously ill! Show some respect!’

  Nathan stops kicking, his lower lip quivering. A moment later Dr Fleet walks into the silence, and everyone turns to look at him.

  ‘How is she?’ Mark Beech demands, his voice still gruff from the telling off. ‘Alice? What happened? Why can’t we see her?’

  ‘You can see her,’ the young man promises. ‘You can see her very soon. I am Dr Fleet; I’m one of the team who’ve been helping to treat and stabilize Alice. She has had a serious fall; she has a broken arm and a nasty cut to the side of her face; it seems a mirror fell on her on the way down …’

  ‘Oh, Alice,’ Laura Beech whispers.

  ‘Our biggest concern right now is the head injury Alice sustained when her head struck the tiled floor. She has not yet regained consciousness, which is not unusual after such a fall, but it does indicate the need to give her a CT scan to find out what’s happening. The scan will show us if there are any fractures to the skull, or any internal bleeding.’

  ‘You’re saying she may need surgery?’ Mark Beech asks.

  ‘Let’s see what the CT scan shows,’ Dr Fleet says. ‘We’ll know what we’re dealing with then.’

  Dr Fleet leads the family into one of the curtained cubicles they passed just minutes ago, and there is Alice, lying on a wheeled bed, pale and motionless. A crescent-shaped cut starred with criss-cross Steri-Strips curves from temple to cheekbone, and her right arm is strapped and folded into some kind of sling. There’s a tube in her mouth which seems to be regulating her breathing; various other wires and tubes attach her to a series of machines.

  ‘Oh,’ Laura Beech reaches out a trembling hand to touch her daughter’s cheek, then stops short. ‘Oh, Alice …’

  6

  Alice

  ‘Alice? Can you hear me, Alice? It’s Mum! I know you’re sleeping now, but I just wanted to let you know I’m here. We’re all here, me and Dad and Nate. The scan is nothing to be scared of, I promise you. Alice? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Can you hear me, Alice?’ the White Rabbit asks. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Before I can answer, the noise begins. It fills the air, a cacophony of drumming that blots out everything else. I fall to my knees and cover my ears with my hands, but the uproar is inside my head, beating against my skull, threatening to break it apart.

  I close my eyes and wait for the pain to stop.

  Year Eight

  I watched them change before my very eyes, Elaine and Yaz. Actually, I should say Lainey and Yaz, because Elaine ditched her name for something much cooler just a few weeks into secondary school.

  Lainey and Yaz were like caterpillars who suddenly morphed into beautiful butterflies without having to endure the ugly chrysalis stage. They just woke up one morning and spread their wings and that was that; they were away, fluttering high above everyone else’s heads; dazzling, daring, out of reach.

  Yaz started wearing eyeliner and straightened her hair every morning. Lainey dyed her hair from mouse brown to blonde at half-term and pretended the sun had bleached it on her holiday to the Canaries.

  They looked great, but when their sparkling smiles accidentally swept across me, they froze like ice. My ex-best friends were cold, careless, detached. It was like I’d never known them at all.

  Mum knew that things had gone wrong with Yaz and Lainey; she’d have had to have been blind not to notice. The girls I’d spent every spare minute with right through primary had dropped out of my life like they’d never been there at all.

  ‘Are you settling in OK?’ Mum had wanted to know. ‘Making new friends?’

  ‘Sure,’ I lied. ‘It’s a great school. Everyone’s really nice!’

  ‘Well, if you ever want to invite anyone over for tea or for a sleepover, go ahead,’ Mum said, and I’d smiled and said I would, but of course it didn’t happen. Who would I have asked?

  Mum didn’t mention it again. I think she knew how much I was struggling, but she didn’t want to make me feel any worse than I already did.

  The bullying started in Year Eight.

  It began slowly. It was subtle, clever, the kind of thing you probably wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t the target. My shoe went missing from the changing rooms after a PE lesson and turned up in a flower bed outside. The following week, my school tie vanished and I was given a detention. Random stuff kept turning up in my school bag, too. We had assembly two or three times a week, and had to leave our bags at the back of the hall, so I knew the sabotage was happening then. Once it was a can of Coke with the ring pull removed so that it leaked and made dark, sticky stains all over everything; once a smooshed up fish paste sandwich which wrecked all my books and made everything stink; once it was an actual raw egg.

  There were a dozen small things: a glass of water spilled over my dinner at lunchtime, a test tube full of sulphur knocked out of my hands in science, the word ‘loser�
� scrawled on my bag in Sharpie pen, a half-chewed toffee stuck in my hair after I’d been foolish enough to sit in front of Lainey and Yaz in English.

  I remembered what Serena had once said about Savvy being a bully, but it was always Lainey and Yaz who did her dirty work. Savvy kept her hands clean, and even dished out a compliment or two.

  ‘Wow, Alice, your hair really suits you like that,’ she said, the day after I changed my parting to disguise the place where I’d had to chop the mess of toffee out of my hair. And, ‘Oh, is that a new bag? How cute!’ the day I came into school with my little brother Nate’s Power Rangers rucksack after the Sharpie pen incident.

  Savvy always looked wide-eyed and innocent when she said these things, and it kind of messed with my head, but then I’ve never been quick on the uptake when it came to sarcasm. I knew Savvy was behind the bullying, pulling the strings. Hadn’t Lainey told me last year that Savannah didn’t like losers?

  Once, in art, I made a little clay coil pot that was pretty much perfect and earned some praise from the teacher. Savvy, sitting across the table from me, glanced at my creation and then back at her own misshapen pot.

  ‘That’s brilliant, Alice,’ she announced, sounding slightly amazed. ‘The best one in the class. You’re really good at art!’

  It should have been a warning. As we were clearing away at the end, Lainey somehow nudged the pot with her elbow so that it fell on the floor, flattened and spoiled. ‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry, Alice! I’m so clumsy. It was amazing, too!’ She bent to rescue it, squidging the clay together in her fist so there was no hope of patching it up. ‘Never mind; you can just start from scratch next week.’

  Nobody else had even noticed, or perhaps it was just that nobody else cared.

  A flash of anger made me tug Lainey’s sleeve as she turned away from me to throw what was left of my pot into the scrap clay bin.