Another Me

by Cathy MacPhail

  I almost ran up the rest of the stairs, and because it was so wet decided to sneak into school by the side door rather than walk the length of the playground to the main entrance. As soon as I was inside I shook out my umbrella and made my way as fast as I could to the girls’ locker room. I hoped Kaylie and Dawn had already arrived.

  Of all mornings, Daft Donald chose this one to waylay me.

  ‘Just the girl I want to speak to,’ he grinned, and beckoned me into his classroom. ‘I won’t keep you a minute.’

  I had no choice but to step inside.

  ‘I’m really soaking wet, sir,’ I said.

  ‘I know. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve asked your English teacher if he can spare you for 15 minutes during his lesson. We’re going to help you get those lines right.’ He grinned as if I’d be delighted.

  I groaned silently. If I hadn’t wanted to get the better of Monica I would have told him where to stuff his lines.

  Donald nodded. ‘The same expression Drew Fraser had when I told him.’

  ‘Drew?’ I asked innocently.

  He smiled. ‘Yes. Drew. No point Lady Macbeth learning her lines alone. Both of you are coming out of English.’

  My face went bright red once again and I tried not to look too pleased. Donald only laughed. ‘Mmm. Drew Fraser’s face went red when I told him, too.’

  This morning, I decided, was getting better by the minute.

  Donald patted my shoulder. ‘It’s good to see you back to your old self, Fay. That haircut’s done wonders for you.’ I was about to agree with him when he added, ‘Why I hardly recognised you when you came across the playground earlier. Not until you looked up and waved.’

  A dark shadow fell across my life in that second. I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t me, sir. I didn’t come across the playground.’

  He dismissed that. ‘Of course it was you. You looked up at me and waved, and I waved back.’

  I drew my hands through my hair, beginning to feel breathless. Please. I didn’t want all this to start again. ‘That wasn’t me, sir. That wasn’t me!’ He must have heard the panic in my voice. He took a step back and looked at me for a moment. Then he said, very softly, ‘I was probably mistaken.’

  But he didn’t mean a word of it. He was trying to calm me down. Keep the crazy girl happy.

  I stumbled out of his classroom. I’d done everything to change things, hadn’t I? And still she was following me.

  What was happening, and how was I going to stop it now?

  As I moved towards the locker room, I could hear Monica’s voice.

  Well, not exactly Monica’s voice. Monica’s voice trying to sound like mine.

  ‘Look at me, I’m Fay. Please notice me. I’ll do anything to get attention.’

  I stepped into the doorway so quietly no one saw me at first.

  And what I saw explained everything.

  There was Monica, talking like me, pretending to be me. Monica, with her hair now cut exactly like mine. And suddenly everything fell into place.

  ‘I’ll get you,’ she had said that day. And she had.

  It had been Monica all the time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was all so clear to me now. Monica had sworn she’d get her revenge because I’d got the part she’d wanted. And, wasn’t it then that everything had started to happen? Where had she been on the night of that first rehearsal when those footsteps had followed me down the dark corridor?

  In the girls’ toilets.

  I could see her now, coming out of there, looking smug. Smug because I had been so afraid. She’d been in there for ages, Dawn had told me. Or had she? Had she, instead, left the auditorium and followed me, switching off the lights, one by one? Knowing she was frightening me. Then, had she darted back into the toilets before anyone noticed? Of course she had. And she could have been the girl in the flats too. She didn’t live very far away from me. How easy to fool Mrs Brennan. She was blind as a bat anyway. She never saw anything beyond my shiny hair. Well, Monica had shiny hair too. Just like mine.

  Now, even more like mine.

  All this passed through my mind in the blink of an eye. Before anyone had even looked up and saw me standing there.

  Monica saw me first. Her face went white. She at least had the decency to look guilty. I could see she was ready with a smart remark.

  But I didn’t give her time to say a word. I roared like a demon out of hell and ran at her. ‘You! You’ve been doing this all along!’ I caught her by the shoulders and sent her sprawling on the floor. Her friends tried to hold me back, but I had the strength of ten of them. I jumped on Monica and grabbed her hair and banged her head hard on the floor. She was too astonished to fight back. She kept screaming at me, ‘You’re mad! You are mad! Get her off me.’

  But no one dared. They were afraid of me. Afraid of my anger.

  ‘You’re evil!’ I yelled at her. ‘How could you do such an evil thing!’

  Now she tried to scratch me, bite me. But there was no contest.

  I had never felt such a fury. All I wanted was to make her suffer the way I had been suffering over the past few weeks.

  It took two of the teachers – Mr Hardie and Mrs Williams – to drag me away from Monica. Even then I struggled to reach her. ‘You don’t know what she’s done!’ I kept shouting.

  Monica struggled to her feet. She was crying, and her hair was standing on end. ‘I didn’t do anything. She’s crazy! She’s been going crazy for weeks.’

  They practically carried me to Mrs Williams’ office, as half the school looked on as if I was some alien creature, something to be afraid of.

  Past Drew Fraser, who stared at me silently, his face puzzled. I wanted to tell him, shout out to him, ‘The double was Monica all the time.’ But by this time I was crying too.

  Mrs Williams waited until I’d calmed down before she asked me a thing. She made tea, and made me drink it. ‘I’ve sent for your mother and father,’ she said. I began to protest but she stopped me with her hand. ‘I couldn’t possibly let this incident go unnoticed.’ Then her voice softened. ‘Fay, what is going on?’

  I took a long swallow of tea and then I told her. I told her everything. Every incident, right up to today, when Donald had thought it was me in the playground. ‘It was Monica,’ I insisted. ‘It was always Monica. You saw her, Mrs Williams. Her hair’s exactly like mine. Why else would she get it cut like that unless it was to go on pretending she’s me?’

  ‘Have you never heard the saying, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?’

  ‘But she’s not been trying to flatter me. She’s been trying to frighten me. Even this morning—’

  ‘As for this morning,’ Mrs Williams interrupted. ‘That certainly wasn’t Monica. She came in the side door to avoid the rain. Just as you did. She has a witness to prove it.’

  ‘Yes. One of her friends, I suppose,’ I snapped.

  ‘No, not one of her friends. Actually, I saw her, Fay.’

  She was just saying that to shut me up. I was sure of it. I saw then that no one was ever going to believe me.

  ‘Fay, you’re turning a simple case of mistaken identity into a drama.’

  ‘Why would I make all this up, Miss?’ I asked her, near to tears.

  She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps you already know the answer to that.’

  I didn’t understand what she meant, didn’t have time to think about it, for at that moment Mum and Dad arrived together, and I could see Mum had been crying. They listened as Mrs Williams told them what had happened, listened, and couldn’t quite take it in.

  Mum turned to me. ‘What’s happening to you, Fay? All this, it just isn’t like you.’

  Mrs Williams simply nodded her head. ‘Exactly, Mrs Delussey, and that is what I think is the crux of the matter. This just isn’t like Fay.’ She folded her hands together on the desk. ‘There’s no point pretending I don’t know that there has been some difficulty at home.’

  At that point Dad
sat down on the other side of me. I clutched at his hand.

  ‘Fay is a very sensitive girl. She loves both of you very much. If you two were to break up – she’d be torn in two. She wouldn’t know which one to go with. So, when people have started mistaking some girl with a passing resemblance for her, she has built the whole thing up out of all proportion. She has created this other one.’

  I was gaping at my teacher in disbelief. Mrs Williams was a nice woman. A good teacher. I knew she meant well. But after a two-week counselling course she was coming up with this rubbish to explain everything.

  Mum turned to me. ‘Can this be true, Fay?’

  I could not believe my mother would be taken in by this. But there it was in her eyes, the hurt, the pain and, yes, the growing belief that this was the answer. ‘I didn’t realise we were hurting you this much.’ She looked at Dad. ‘This is our fault.’

  Suddenly, I jumped to my feet. I couldn’t take it anymore. ‘This is rubbish! There is someone else pretending to be me. Monica! That’s the simple explanation. Why can’t anybody believe it?’

  Mrs Williams put on her best counselling voice. ‘Come on, Fay. You know there’s no one pretending to be you.’ She said it calmly, her voice so patronising I could have screamed.

  I wouldn’t listen to this anymore. The letter opener was on the desk in front of me and I grabbed it. ‘Well, from now on you will definitely know when it’s me!’

  I dragged the sharp end right down my hand. Droplets of blood fell like rubies on to the desk. My blood.

  Mum screamed. And I yelled, ‘I’ll be the one with the scar.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was asked to stay off school for the rest of the week. Not that I could have refused. But they wouldn’t suspend me. Not in my ‘disturbed’ condition.

  And, of course, what I’d done – stabbing myself with the letter opener – only confirmed that.

  Mum and Dad led me off to hospital, past my school friends in the corridor. Kaylie and Dawn looked shocked at the blood-soaked handkerchief tied round my hand. But they said nothing. And Drew Fraser just looked puzzled. Had it been only this morning that he’d suggested walking home with me? Only an hour ago that nothing else seemed to matter?

  Four stitches, that was all I needed. But I spent the rest of that day in bed. I couldn’t stop shivering. Mum said it was shock. But I knew what it was. It was fear. Fear that someone, if not Monica, was deliberately doing this to me, and I couldn’t get anyone to believe me. I was alone. More alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

  Mum came into my bedroom in the afternoon. Her eyes were red and her face puffy from crying. She was trying hard to smile now. Trying to make me feel better. All I felt was guilty.

  ‘I’m staying off work all week,’ she told me. ‘I’m going to look after you. I’ve got some holidays from work.’

  ‘Mum, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine on my own.’ I lifted my bandaged hand. ‘I won’t do anything like this again.’

  I couldn’t imagine now, what had possessed me to do it in the first place. I must have been mad—

  The phrase came into my mind, and I immediately pushed it away.

  Mum stroked my face. ‘Dad and I had a long talk and we’ve decided things are going to be different from now on. We’re going to stay together. You won’t ever have to worry about that again. Dad and you and me. A family. Right?’

  It was all I ever wanted to hear, but it wasn’t all right. Because it meant they really did believe – what Mrs Williams had said – there was no other one or anyone pretending to be me. I had made her up because I didn’t want my parents to split up.

  Mum hugged me. ‘We’re going to look for a holiday. Somewhere in the sun. After the New Year. Nice time for a winter holiday, eh?’

  It was sounding better by the minute, but she still had to know I wasn’t mistaken or making it up, or mad. ‘Mum, someone has been pretending to be me.’

  She nodded. ‘I’m sure you’re right. Girls can be really horrible at times. I remember one in my class. Rose Devenney. She used to spread the most horrible rumours about me, got all her friends to back her up. So it looked as if they were true. I couldn’t get anyone to believe me either. Then, I had this most awful fight with her. In the playground. We battered lumps out of each other. But, you know, she never spread any rumours again. In fact, Rose Devenney and I became good mates. She was even at my wedding.’

  She laughed at the memory.

  ‘I can’t imagine me and Monica ever being friends.’

  ‘No. Maybe not. And I don’t want you thinking I’m condoning what you did,’ she scolded. ‘But I think it probably was this Monica who’s been playing tricks on you. But after today . . . I think it will stop. She must know she’s gone too far.’

  How I hoped that was true.

  Mum went on. ‘But it wouldn’t have got to you so much if you hadn’t been so worried about your dad and me.’

  I wanted to tell her that was rubbish. But at that moment, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know any more what was real and what was imaginary.

  Her voice became so soft. ‘I do love your dad, you know.’

  How could she help it? My dad was wonderful, and good, and thoughtful. She could never get anyone better than him. ‘Of course you do,’ I said, just as softly.

  That week wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be. Kaylie and Dawn came most nights, filling me in with all the news about Monica.

  ‘She’s walking about telling everybody you’re off your head, but no one listens to her. Nearly everybody thinks she had it coming to her.’

  ‘And she thought she was bound to get the part of Lady Macbeth now. She played it in rehearsal the other night and she remembered all her lines. Made a point of telling Daft Donald, and d’you know what he said?’

  I was eager to know, and Dawn went on, mocking Donald’s posh voice. ‘This is Fay’s part and it will remain Fay’s part.’ She laughed loudly. ‘He thinks she was the one playing tricks on you as well.’

  All this made me feel better. Yet, somewhere at the back of my mind a warning bell was ringing.

  Monica hadn’t come across the playground that day. Mrs Williams was the witness who could prove that. She’d come in the side entrance just like me.

  So, who had waved at Donald?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mum made me apologise to Monica when I went back to school.

  No. She didn’t actually make me. She suggested I should, told me I’d feel better if I did. ‘Let’s look on this as a whole new beginning,’ she said.

  A whole new beginning was exactly what I wanted. But I was reluctant to say I was sorry to Monica. ‘She doesn’t deserve an apology,’ I told Mum.

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t, but if you apologise and she refuses to accept it, then it puts her in the wrong.’

  So, when I went back to school the following Monday, I walked straight up to Monica. She took a step back as if she thought I was about to attack her again. But I held out my hand. I even managed a smile. ‘I’m sorry, Monica,’ I said, there in front of the whole class. ‘I’m really sorry I had that fight with you.’

  Her eyes narrowed. I could see she was ready to throw one of her acid remarks at me. She didn’t want to accept the apology. She glanced around, ready to tell anyone who would listen that I was crazy. But when she did she saw that every eye was on her. And she must have sensed, as I did, that she would be the one who would be crazy if she refused to accept.

  She didn’t smile back. That would have been expecting too much. But she did shake my hand. She didn’t say anything either. Not then. Not until we were taking our seats and the classroom buzz covered her words. ‘What’s your game, Fay?’

  But I only shrugged an answer and gave her a tiny smile.

  Mrs Williams heard about my apology and took me into her office during break. ‘That was a very wise thing you did.’

  ‘It was my mum’s idea,’ I told her.

  ‘But you were the one
who had to actually apologise. I’m very proud of you, Fay.’

  Mrs Williams was definitely beginning to annoy me. Did she really think that her being proud of me was important?

  ‘And everything’s OK at home now.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. Mum must have phoned and told her. I hated my teachers knowing, this one in particular. It was none of her business, and of course it only reinforced her opinion that ‘family troubles’ were behind my wild imaginings.

  I was glad to get away from her. As I hurried down the corridor, Drew Fraser was leaning against the wall at the main doors. He was watching me come towards him, tapping a pencil against his white teeth. It didn’t occur to me for a moment that he was waiting for me. But he was.

  He stood straight as I came near and beckoned me across to him. ‘I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. Do you still want to hear what I’ve found out?’

  I had almost forgotten. ‘What have you found out?’

  He glanced around almost as if he was afraid someone might be listening. ‘Remember what I told you that day on the stairs?’

  It seemed so long ago now. ‘You said you’d found out things.’ Strange things, he had told me, but I didn’t mention that.

  ‘Are you still interested?’

  One thought sprang into my mind. ‘Why are you so interested, Drew?’

  He smiled. ‘Because it’s a mystery. And you know I’ve always loved mysteries.’ He tugged my sleeve. ‘Let’s go through this whole thing. Right. You’ve not got an identical twin.’

  I shook my head. ‘That was the first thing I thought of.’

  ‘And you’ve not been cloned.’

  I sighed. ‘Hardly likely, is it?’

  ‘And Monica’s not doing this.’

  Now he had my complete attention. ‘It has to be her.’

  Drew was shaking his head. ‘It’s not. I’ve asked her. I believe her.’

  I took a step away from him. ‘So, you think I’m imagining everything too, do you?’