by Wendy Harmer
'I know it's hard to believe,' Tilly continues. 'What happened was that Jayden found some of Will's texts, and even though Lily swore blind she hadn't answered them, he went mental and dropped her on the spot. Then, the next night when Jai didn't turn up, she was thrilled when Will dropped by instead.'
I wonder if he ate his mum's paella first?
'So this whole thing was to get back at Jayden. It wasn't about you at all.'
Oh, OK then, nothing to do with me. My heart's just been bashed senseless by some random accident. That makes me feel better – not!
Tilly's guessed what I'm thinking and continues. 'But I know that's no consolation, Els. I just want to say that you have to see that Will's the one who's wrong. He busted up Jayden and Lily and betrayed you. And to think that surfie flake gets around with this "peace and love" act . . .'
I finish the sentence in my head: And to think that an idiot like me believed it.
'No-one saw this coming, Els, no-one. So you can't blame yourself.'
Too late.
'Georgie says her phone was out of batteries, so she just took some pics on Lily's phone – I'm not sure whether Will knew they were being taken or not. Then Georgie left and after that, Lily's poisoned mind got to work.'
Another ding on my computer and I see it's an eye2eye from Will's little sister Pookie. If she's found out, all the way down there in the wooden shack at Hammerhead, then everyone in town must know. The poor baby will be wondering what's happening. That's the other thing that's painful. I loved spending time with Pookie. She's only nine and she's like my little sister. The thought that I won't be hanging out with her ever again is truly sad.
'I just want you to know that I will never, ever speak to Georgie again,' Tilly rants. 'She's guilty as far as I'm concerned. Guilty of being heartless and thoughtless. She's a total moron. And as for Lily . . . flirting with Year Nine and Ten boys? Where's her self-respect? She's just not right in the head. I wouldn't even have started talking to her if I hadn't bought this bracelet off her last summer.'
Tilly holds her tiny wrist up to the desk lamp. The bracelet's a pretty thing with tiny dangling pink glass beads and shells. Maybe that's why Will wants to be with her – 'cos she's clever and artistic and makes beautiful jewellery. Lily has big black shiny eyes like a possum, long dark hair, fair skin and laughs all the time. I can see her now with her red swimmers and matching toenails. She knows how to do all that girly stuff boys love. The last time I matched my bathers and toenail polish was – never. Why is she always laughing? What's so funny, anyway? I catch my face in the mirror. I'm frowning, as usual.
I think too much, that's my problem. I ask too many questions.
'You know what you should do, Els?' says Tilly. You should fight fire with fire.'
Huh? Tilly's on her feet now, pacing my room, punching my pink pig repeatedly and looking quite scary, actually. What's she talking about? Fire with fire. Isn't this what got me into trouble in the first place?
'Well, OK, maybe not fire with fire, but how do you fight fire? With a big bucket of water! Here's the plan.'
Another plan from Tilly? I slump forward over my desk with my head in my hands.
'What you do is put up a message on your FacePlace – how you're thrilled to be by yourself and that you've already moved on from Will. Then you post some photos of you looking gorgeous, independent and happy.'
But, I moan, I'm not any of those things right now!
'Doesn't matter. This is all about perception, Els. You can't be a victim. Show everyone you're strong. That'll pour water on the flames of all this gossip once and for all. When I busted up I cried and carried on for ages. I was totally pathetic and useless and I look back on it now and think, if only I had been stronger! No-one respects you for being weak.'
But I do feel weak. Very weak. I'm starving hungry and I'm thinking about that burnt lasagne with affection. All the crying of the past few hours has zapped all the energy from my body. I feel floppy, like a Beanie Bear with a hole in it.
'I can help you if you like,' says Tilly, with a glint in her eye.
I've seen that look before and it's dangerous. I tell Tilly I'll have a think about it. First she can help by bringing me something to eat. Before I expire. Please? Tilly agrees to bring supplies. She closes the door behind her.
The Dungeon is suitably gloomy tonight. Mum and Dad are down there in the lounge room watching TV. The wind and rain have started up again and the branches of the apricot tree are scraping at the window. It's exactly what you'd expect to find out the window of your 'heartbreak hotel' if you were the loser character in a weepie movie.
I wonder what Will's doing? Is he sitting looking out the window and thinking of me too? Or up to his neck in bubbles with Lily? I've got an unread message from Pookie. I know it will make me cry. My fingers are just straying to the mouse when Tilly comes back with a bowl of microwaved lasagne (which has now been reheated twice and I half hope lands me in intensive care with salmonella) and a packet of Tim Tams (she says they're essential heartbreak food).
Tilly watches me scoff everything with sisterly sympathy and after I've eaten I start to feel a bit more energised. Tilly looks over my shoulder at the computer screen and sees the eye2eye from Pookie. There's another ding that makes us both jump. It's from Will. From Will! Before my fingers can edge towards the mouse, Tilly pounces with a speed that would put Camilla to shame and hits 'delete' – twice. The messages from Pookie and Will vanish. Just to make sure I can't get to them she empties the trash file as well.
'And that's the other thing,' Tilly declares. 'You will not speak to or see Will again. In fact, it's rule number one. No exceptions. Now have another Tim Tam and get to work.'
Tilly exits, leaving behind a faint smell of blackberry hair conditioner and beeswax. I wonder whether I should take more advice from my big sister?
I've watched Tilly make her way in the world from when she first went to high school in her ugly blazer and clompy shoes with her hair in two stickyout pigtails. I've seen all the tantrums and tears and bust-ups and arguments over the years. Now she's almost eighteen and look at her! Beautiful and smart and popular. She's deputy school captain. She's in the orchestra, swimming team and she won a State prize for chemistry. Total brainiac!
Everyone knows her boyfriend Eddie. He's a big hero here in Oldcastle – in the whole of Britannia, come to that. Tilly and Eddie were in the social pages of the Britannia Bugle last week at a charity night for the Prince John Hospital. Tilly looked like Princess Mary of Denmark and Eddie looked like Prince Frederick – only taller, darker and on steroids.
So I hear what Tilly says, but I can't help wondering what Sun Tzu would say about all this. I google The Art of War again and come up with this:
The difficulty of tactical manoeuvring consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.
On the field of battle the spoken word does not carry far enough: hence the institution of gongs and drums. Nor can ordinary objects be seen clearly enough: hence the institution of banners and flags.
Gongs and drums, banners and flags, are means whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused on one particular point.
Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest.
In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain.
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
So, Tilly's right. I need to turn my misfortune around, and in a hurry. The gongs and drums? Well, as this Sun Tzu dude said back in 400 BC, the spoken word doesn't carry fast enough. As for the banners and flags? You can do all that on the net. My words will be as fast as the wind and they will fall like thunderbolts.
:-(0) MAKE MY DAY
Saturday. Midnight. One week
PM. Twelve hours AW.
My FacePlace site is locked and loaded! I'm looking at it one last time before I unleash its power.
; Once I got started, it was like I couldn't stop. All the incriminating pics are there now – the stupid, cringeworthy ones of Will laughing with ginger beer coming out of his nose; Will falling over a railing wrestling with his wetsuit; Will playing the ukulele with his feet; Will with two dead starfish on his eyes.
I put them all in a slideshow and then backed it with that song from Rihanna – the one where she says the boy is only sorry 'cos he got caught and he'd better take off before she turns on the lawn sprinklers. Yeah!
I used to think these shots were adorable – that they showed Will's funny side. But now I can see what everyone else does – that underneath his 'cool' image, he's just an immature idiot. No wonder Jai thinks he's up himself.
The photos were just a few of the hundreds of snaps I had to choose from. In the ten months we were going together I took zillions of pics. I should erase them all I suppose, but it's not as satisfying as ripping up a real photo. There are a couple of pics of Will and me that I printed out and stuck on my corkboard. I'll get around to tearing them down later.
With Camilla winding herself around my ankles and settling down to sleep on my feet, I found a quote about 'lost love':
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
William Makepeace Thackeray
I posted it and then I cried some more and Camilla looked up at me with two sweet round orange eyes like Jaffas. Just for her sake I stopped blubbering and got on with it. Like Tilly said, this is all about 'perception', AKA a pack of lies, because if I hadn't been so foolish and fallen in love with Will, I wouldn't be feeling so wretched. William Thackeray's wrong; I reckon it's safer not to love anyone, at all.
So I also added this:
The stupidest mistake in life is thinking the one who hurt you the most, won't hurt you again.
Anonymous
And that's totally true!
BTW, it's interesting that this quote's anonymous. Even way back then people wrote stuff anonymously, so it's not just the net, Dad!
Then I got to work using my graphic design skills and made an animation – a hairy rodent with Will's head superimposed on it dancing across the page, wearing a T-shirt reading 'Love Rat'. It was a demented masterpiece.
Last I posted some shots of me by myself – all the best ones I could find. Me looking, as Tilly said, 'happy and independent'. I dunno about 'gorgeous', but in the ones I chose I'm smiling and the sun is out and yeah, I look like I don't have a care in the world. Maybe Will's right and everything in cyberspace is fake. Only I'm sure there was nothing fake in the photos of Will with Lily. It was all hideously authentic. And the pain I'm feeling is really, utterly real.
Now I see the page is ready and I send out an emergency bulletin informing my 105 friends (including the Prime Minister) that they should drop by my FacePlace and stare into the Mirror of Revenge!
Sunday. 2 am.
PM. AW.
I wake up to see the two crystal eyes of my pink pig staring at me accusingly, glittering in the moonlight. I have done the right thing trashing Will on the net, haven't I? Tilly's right, isn't she? Surely Sun Tzu knew what he was talking about?
It's pitch black in The Dungeon and doubt strikes me like a thunderbolt.
Sunday. 10.30 am.
PM. AW.
My computer dinging like crazy is the first sound I hear as I rub the sleep from my eyes. I see that already there are 13 new messages on my mirror. They seem to be mostly anonymous. (I left my mirror on lowest security so anyone could drop in and look. I reflect, in the cold light of morning, that maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do.)
You go girlfriend!
This is a lesson for all boyz who cheat!
So Will's single? Xcellent.
Gotcha Will! Dumb seaweed head!
ROLF. Does this get any better?
Elly, I'd ask you out but now I'm s**t scared! LOL
Say 'cheese', Will, you RAT!!!
Jayden's revenge :-)
Can't wait till Monday morning.
Oooh Elly, you are a b**ch!
The Prime Minister is away from this site and will return on October 19. (Auto reply)
I miss you heaps. I hope you and Will get back together, Pookie XoXoXo
Now Elly's dumped on Willy,
She says it's payback time,
Willy's lookin foolish,
Elly's lookin fine.
The Phantom Rhymer
Oh my God! I feel like I've been whacked in the head again, repeatedly and really hard. Where do I start with all this? Looks like both me and Will have been flamed. I don't know what to feel. What was I expecting?
:+(
Then I hear my mum calling from the hall.
'Eleanor, come on sleepyhead! I want you to help me get this house sorted before we go to Nan's. There's a load of washing for you to hang out, then you can vacuum the lounge and do the vegetable crisper for me. It's like a wilderness area in the bottom of that fridge!'
I yell to Mum that I'll be there in a minute, stalling for time. She seems to have already forgotten that I am an emotional basket case and need extra care right now.
My hand is shaking as I go to my mailbox and see there are eye2eyes from both Carmelita and Bianca. I open the one from Carmelita first:
El,
I don't think this was a good idea. I know you're angry and upset, but shouldn't you go and work this out with Will in private? I've been thinking, something about this doesn't make sense. Have you actually asked Will what was going on in those pics?
Luv ya, Carmelita XOXOXO
'Come on, Elly!' Mum barges in the door and stands there with her hands on her hips. 'I want this house done. I'm not spending all my precious weekend cleaning up after everyone!'
I mumble that I'm coming and open the eye2eye from Bianca:
Hah!
U really nailed Smelly Willy!! He dezerves everything you dishing out. Jai v.v. happy and Jayden will punch his head in for U.
Bianca.
'ELLY, GET YOURSELF IN HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE!' Mum screeches.
I wonder what Sun Tzu and his armies in 400 BC China would have done if they were confronted by a fire-breathing dragon? Run away and jump into the Yangtze River is my guess. Right now hanging out the washing and cleaning out the vegetable crisper sounds like as good a thing to do as any other.
The thought that I've made Jai 'v.v. happy' makes me feel like I'm going to throw up.
I'm piling yellow broccoli, bendy carrots and disgusting brown lettuce onto the kitchen counter and thinking that this vegetable crisper is like my life. All that was good and healthy just days ago has turned into rotten, mouldy mush.
Tilly walks into the kitchen in an old fraying pink silk kimono. She sees me, stretches her arms and smiles. She looks so innocent this morning. It's hard to believe that I'm up to my armpits in stinking compost because of her. Because, when I think about it, if she hadn't suggested I get back at Jai and then at Will on the net, I'd still be snapping fresh and full of wholesome goodness. As it is, I'm like this sad zucchini. You can poke your finger in me and what's underneath the skin is a rancid, gooey mess.
I watch as Tilly swigs from a carton of coffeefl avoured milk.
'So, how's the battle on the internet going, Els? Have we finished off the enemy once and for all?'
