Looking Glass Girl

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘She’s pretty much the same,’ Laura says. ‘She’s off the ventilator, though; breathing by herself. That’s got to be good.’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about her,’ Savvy says. ‘I can’t sleep, can’t think. I just keep going over and over it all. I’m so, so sorry, Mrs Beech!’

  Laura’s heart melts, and instinctively she opens her arms as the girl steps into them. They hug, and Laura makes soothing noises as Savvy sobs and says over and over how guilty she feels, how awful.

  ‘Savvy, it wasn’t your fault,’ Laura tells her. ‘We all feel guilty, we all wish we could have stopped it happening, but the truth is, we couldn’t. It was an accident, a horrible, horrible accident.’

  She offers a wad of tissues to Savvy, who blots her tears, smudging her eyeliner as she does so.

  ‘Another of Alice’s friends was in earlier,’ Laura says. ‘Luke. It’s great that you all care so much.’

  Where were you all when she was well? Laura wants to ask. When she sat in her room alone, night after night, spinning out her maths homework to try and look busy, playing Monopoly and Cluedo with her little brother, drawing page after page of sad-eyed anime girls? Where were you all then?

  She doesn’t ask, though. She smiles and pulls up a chair for Savvy and asks if the girl would like a drink, and Savvy says she would. And then Laura walks away, heading for the cafeteria in search of mocha coffee with chocolate sprinkles; she leaves Savvy and Alice alone.

  34

  Alice

  ‘It’s – it’s me, Savvy. I had to see you alone, Alice. I had to say sorry. This should never have happened. Oh, Alice, it’s all my fault …’

  The Hatter is nowhere to be seen, and the moment I step out from behind the tree I find myself face to face with the Queen of Hearts, flanked by two playing-card soldiers. She is beautiful but terrifying, cold anger flashing from her eyes. Her fingers grip my arm so tightly I am sure each finger must be leaving a bruise.

  ‘Alice,’ she says. ‘Alice, I am disappointed in you. Why did you do it? Why did you have to spoil everything?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I whisper.

  ‘Oh yes you do, Alice,’ she says. ‘You came along to my party and you committed a serious crime. You will have to be punished, you know!’

  ‘I – I can’t remember!’ I protest. ‘What did I do?’

  ‘Why, you stole the tarts!’ she says, her voice rising to a roar. ‘Here she is, here she is! Off with her head!’

  I pull away and the Queen grips me harder, and there’s a tussle before I finally wrench free and stumble away into the mist.

  The Hatter’s words echo through my mind. ‘You just have to remember, Alice,’ he says. ‘You just have to remember, and you’ll find your way back …’

  A memory surfaces, bright and sharp. It’s the middle of the night and everything is pitch black, and I am arguing with Savvy Hunter. I can’t remember why, or where, or how – but I remember falling, falling into darkness.

  Sleepover

  ‘What is this?’ I asked Lainey as we stepped through the door into darkness. ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Shhh, Alice; we’re supposed to be hiding! Don’t give the game away!’

  The light snapped on and I saw that we were at the top of a flight of worn stone steps. The walls were bare stone too, and everything smelled slightly damp and musty. It was some kind of basement, and I did not want to go down there at all.

  ‘Hang on, Lainey,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t like this – let’s find somewhere else!’

  ‘I just want five minutes,’ Lainey pleaded. ‘Five minutes to talk, OK? Then we can give ourselves up; I don’t care …’

  I followed her down. At the bottom of the steps there was a tiny hallway; we pushed past a couple of ancient bicycles to get to three more doors: one room had been half-converted into some sort of utility area, another was being used as a wine cellar and the third was a kind of indoor garden shed. It was filled with tools and suitcases and rolled up rugs, an empty hamster cage, a shelf of empty jam jars and endless heaps of packing cases, boxes and crates. There was a kind of half window high up on one wall, with metal bars across it, probably to deter break-ins; a drapery of cobwebs hung across it like a sinister lace curtain, and if I looked up I could see the faint silhouettes of plants and shrubbery. We were underground.

  ‘Yuk,’ I said. ‘I don’t think anyone has been down here in ages. It’s creepy!’

  ‘It’s just a cellar,’ Lainey said, dismissive. ‘Best hiding place in the house!’

  She dragged out an old tea chest for me to sit on and perched on a battered garden chair herself.

  ‘I bet Savvy forgets to count, anyway,’ she said. ‘She’s too busy messaging Dex. Seriously, she is boy-mad, totally. Look; I just wanted to say, Alice … well, it’s been so cool hanging out with you tonight. I’ve really missed that. I’d forgotten what fun you can be, and that you just, well, understand me. Better than Savvy does, better than Erin, maybe better than Yaz, even. We used to be so close, once, didn’t we? What happened, Alice?’

  I opened my mouth to answer, but words failed me. What happened? The Cold War happened, the slow dismantling of a friendship. Bullying happened.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, weary.

  ‘I’d probably blame it on pre-teen hormones and silly jealousies if I had to come up with a reason,’ Lainey was saying. ‘And like I said the other day – well, things were pretty bad at home, with Mum’s boyfriend. I hate Kevin and he hates me. He never misses a chance to put me down, make me feel like dirt. I was pretty miserable back then, Alice. I’m sorry if I took things out on you. I didn’t mean it. I’d like to put things right.’

  I blink. Of all the things that had happened so far tonight, this was the most unexpected and yet somehow the most amazing thing of all.

  ‘Does … does that mean we’re friends again?’ I asked, hardly daring to hope. ‘Proper friends?’

  Lainey rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve always been your friend, Alice,’ she said. ‘Just … well, we went off along different tracks for a while, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I echoed. ‘And now we’re kind of heading in the same direction again?’

  ‘Kind of,’ Lainey agreed. ‘It’s just a case of getting Savvy to accept you, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s nice,’ I said. ‘Much funnier and cooler than I thought. Not so scary.’

  Lainey laughed. ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Alice,’ she told me. ‘Savvy is sweet and kind and funny, sure, but she likes to get her own way. She’s in charge, and what she says goes. I think she likes you, Alice. She likes that you know boys like Luke and girls like Keisha Carroll. But, the thing is, Savvy doesn’t let just anyone join her group.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  There was a silence, and up above I could hear faint footsteps moving through the hallway, running up the stairs. It seemed that Savvy had finished her texting and started looking.

  ‘Savvy needs to know she can trust you,’ Lainey whispered. ‘That you’re loyal. That’s why you’re here, I guess; so she can suss you out, see whether you fit in. She’s testing you.’

  All evening I’d wondered about this, felt as if I was being watched to see how I’d handle certain things; a sleepover with the girls who’d been bullying me for months, a teacup full of rum punch, a game of spin the bottle. I had no clue how I was doing.

  ‘You almost blew it, getting all mushy with Luke, y’know,’ Lainey explained. ‘The whole point of the party was so that Savvy could get together with Dex. The rest of us aren’t meant to get too serious with anyone. Savvy gets to say who goes out with who, so I’d cool things a bit there, if I were you.’

  ‘I was only talking,’ I argued. ‘Luke’s just a friend …’

  I knew I wasn’t kidding anyone, not even myself.

  ‘I know you like him too,’ I said, and I saw Lainey’s eyes flash with anger.

  ‘Ancient history,’ she snapped.
‘He’s OK, but I have better things to do than get involved with some nobody from our old primary school. I prefer older boys, these days.’

  I almost laughed at that, but Lainey had a way of turning things around when she was thwarted. If you had something she didn’t have and she couldn’t do anything about it, she’d pretend she never wanted it in the first place.

  ‘Look,’ Lainey said. ‘If you want to be friends with Savvy just back off a little; stay away from Luke. I mean, you didn’t know the rules, so she’ll make allowances this time. But I said I’d have a word with you. Let you know how things work.’

  My head was struggling to take all this in. What Lainey was telling me was crazy. I couldn’t get involved with Luke in case Savvy disapproved? I had to prove my loyalty, let Savvy call the shots. It was messed up, and totally at odds with what I’d seen of Savvy this evening.

  Then again, she didn’t need to do her own dirty work; she had Erin, Yaz and Lainey to do it for her. Being friends with them all seemed like a lot of hard work if this evening was anything to go by.

  Lainey jumped up suddenly, her eyes wide.

  ‘Hey – what was that noise?’ she said, her voice wobbling slightly. ‘Did you hear it, Alice? It sounded … sort of electrical. Like a fizzing, buzzing sound!’

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  Lainey was creeping towards the door. ‘There’s definitely something,’ she insisted. ‘How can you not hear it? Maybe there’s a fuse box in the utility room, or a trip switch or something? I’m going to look!’

  She slipped out of the door and I was on my feet, already halfway to following, when suddenly the lights went out. I froze, my heart thumping. It was pitch black; a stifling, smothering blanket of darkness.

  ‘What happened?’ I yelled. ‘Lainey? Are you OK?’

  ‘I think the lights have tripped,’ her voice called out, faintly. ‘It’s a power cut. I knew something was up – stay there, I’m going to fetch Savvy!’

  Stay here? Like that was going to happen. I stumbled forward in the direction of the door, banged into something in the dark and skinned my shins. My eyes stung with tears as I edged my way round what seemed to be a pile of suitcases with the metal clasps sticking out.

  ‘Lainey?’ I shouted. ‘Hang on. Wait for me!’

  There was no reply, just the quiet click of the door being closed at the top of the cellar stairs. My mouth was dry with panic. Lainey knew I didn’t like the dark. She wouldn’t leave me alone in a damp, musty cellar in a power cut, would she?

  ‘Lainey?’ I tried again. ‘Lainey! Wait!’

  I moved forward again, my arms outstretched to negotiate the piles of junk and rubbish. Instead of finding the door, I crashed into the old hamster cage and tripped, stumbling forward against the shelving. I put my arms out to steady myself and a whole load of jam jars clattered down on top of me, smashing to pieces on the stone floor.

  I stopped for a moment, heart banging, gathering my thoughts. I fought the impulse to cry or scream. All I had to do was stay still, and wait until Lainey came back with Savvy to fix the lights. But would she? Could she?

  If something had gone wrong with the electrics, Savvy wasn’t going to be able to fix it. She’d have to call an emergency electrician, and at almost one in the morning that wasn’t really an option.

  Moving more slowly now, I turned and began to pick my way across the cellar again, heading for where I thought the door was. I held my hands out in front of me and groped my way forward, fingers snagging on crates and boxes and layers of dust. After what seemed like forever, I reached the clammy stone wall and then, finally, the door.

  Relief flooded through me. My fingers slid down over the flaking paint until they reached the door handle. I turned it, gently, firmly.

  The door was locked.

  35

  ICU, Ardenley General Hospital

  ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to the sleepover,’ Savvy says, hunched in the chair at Alice’s bedside. ‘I’d noticed you a few times at school – in art, in the cafeteria. I saw you with Keisha Carroll and I thought you were interesting. I thought it would be cool to get to know you, but it was a bad, bad idea. The others didn’t want you along; Yaz and Lainey especially. They said it would be awkward, because the three of you had been friends at primary and then drifted apart; they said you weren’t the kind of person I’d really get along with, that you were vain and annoying and full of yourself. They said you weren’t worth the trouble, but … well, I thought they were wrong. I didn’t want to listen.

  ‘That’s a fault I have, Alice. I don’t like being told what to do. I like to get my own way.’

  She stops, shaking her head.

  ‘And then Erin said I was just playing games, messing with people’s lives, letting you think we could all be friends when really I had no intention of letting you into the group. You know Erin – she says what she thinks, even if it hurts. I don’t think I’d have let anyone else say those things to me, but Erin knows me well. I suppose she was right, in a way, Alice. I make new friends and then I lose interest in them again. You saw the photo wall in my bedroom. I’m fickle. I like new people. I like making new friends. I am always looking for the person who really understands me, sees past the surface, gets the “real” me. Do you know what I mean?’

  Savvy sighs and rolls her eyes.

  ‘Oh, Alice, you can’t tell me, even if you do understand. I don’t even know if you can hear me at all. I feel kind of stupid, but … well, I have to say it. I need you to understand. I shouldn’t have asked you to the sleepover because it bugged the others; Yaz and Lainey especially.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think they were good friends to you, Alice. Not really. I think they were a bit envious maybe – a bit jealous – and they really, really didn’t want me bringing you into the group. I should have left it there, but I thought it might be fun to stir it up a bit, make them insecure. I didn’t care if you ended up in the middle of it, or if my friends felt threatened. You see? I am not a very nice person, Alice. I’m really not.’

  Savvy hangs her head, and when she looks up again, her lashes are starred with tears. She twists her fingers together, drops her voice to a whisper.

  ‘Do you want to know the truth, Alice?’ she asks. ‘I thought you were interesting, sure, but that’s not why I asked you along on Saturday. I was using you. That’s the honest truth; that’s why I wanted you at the sleepover.

  ‘Remember I told you about that day I was out with Lainey and we bumped into Luke and Dex? I liked Dex from the start. I hinted that we should go out sometime; me and Lainey with Dex and Luke, but they didn’t seem all that bothered. I couldn’t pin them down. And then Luke started asking Lainey about you, Alice; whether you were still friends, whether you still did drama, whether you had a boyfriend. He was interested in you, really interested; and I was pretty sure that if I had a sleepover and asked you along, he’d come.’

  Savvy sniffs and raises her chin.

  ‘So that was the reason, Alice,’ she says. ‘I was using you to get Luke to bring his friends along, to get to the boy I fancied. And I knew all along it would upset Yaz and Lainey. I knew it would cause trouble and I should have stopped it, but I didn’t. Erin was right – I was playing games, and it all went so, so wrong. I know you were angry with me, Alice, and you had every right to be …’

  Savvy falls silent abruptly as Alice’s mum comes back into the room with the requested takeaway mocha with chocolate sprinkles.

  ‘Sorry I took so long,’ she is saying. ‘They didn’t have mocha on the menu, but I pointed out that if they can do a latte and they can do a hot chocolate, then they can definitely do a mocha – and they did! Here you are; I hope it’s OK.’

  But Savvy is on her feet, wiping a hand across her eyes, grabbing her bag.

  ‘Savvy? What’s wrong? Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m sorry … I just can’t … it’s too upsetting!’ she blurts. ‘I shouldn’t be
here!’

  She pushes past Laura, her eyes streaming with tears.

  36

  Alice

  ‘Alice, this is Mum; I’m just popping home for a couple of hours to see Nathan. Gran’s coming in again to sit with you and I’ll be back in at teatime with your dad, OK? Maybe you’ll be awake by then; I hope so. Come back to us, Alice … please?’

  The mist swirls around me like wisps of smoke, and I tread carefully, softly; afraid in case the Queen of Hearts or the playing-card soldiers reappear. Propped against one of the trees is a huge, heavy mirror with an ornate gold frame and, as I watch, the Hatter appears from behind it.

  ‘Have you remembered yet?’ he asks. ‘Have you remembered how to get home?’

  He smiles, takes off his hat and sweeps into a low bow, before turning and stepping right through the mirror.

  ‘Hatter?’ I call. ‘Remembered what, Hatter? Come back, please!’

  I push my hands against the mirror glass, but it’s cold and hard and impenetrable, and the Hatter has vanished without trace.

  Sleepover

  My fists hammered harder and harder against the wooden door – so hard that my knuckles bled. I couldn’t see the blood, but when I brought a hand up to my mouth to stifle the sobs, I tasted salt and iron.

  ‘Lainey!’ I yelled, so loudly I thought my lungs would burst. ‘Lainey! Savvy! Erin! Yaz! Somebody help me, please!’

  I shouted and yelled until my voice was hoarse, and then I sank to my knees on the clammy stone floor and sobbed. They wouldn’t come; they wouldn’t help. It was crazy to think that they might. They were the ones who had done this to me.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Savvy had set a trap and I’d walked right into it, because I was too lonely and too desperate to notice it was there. Why on earth had I come to the sleepover at all?

  I guess you can’t get closer to rock bottom than cowering on your knees in a musty cellar, crying because you’re scared of the dark and sick with shame because the people you thought could be your friends have turned out to be your worst enemies. Worse still was realizing that I should have known that all along. These were the people who’d been bullying me all year. Nothing had changed; they’d just stepped up the bullying a notch or two.