The Treatment

by C. L. Taylor

  ‘There’s no footage of the East Wing between twenty-one nineteen and twenty-two zero nine. It just cuts out.’

  ‘There’s nothing?’

  ‘No. Nothing. Just grey fuzz.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Yes. I checked twice.’

  ‘Were you at your desk between those times?’

  ‘No. Stuart radioed me to help out in the East Wing. Israel was acting peculiarly and –’

  ‘I know what happened with Israel,’ Mrs H. snaps. ‘Destiny you are never to leave your post when you’re on CCTV duty. Never. First you wipe your staff pass by leaving it too close to your credit card and now this. Report to my office immediately.’

  ‘Mrs H., I’m sorry. I know I was on my final warning but I really love this job and –’

  ‘Now, Destiny.’ Mrs H. whips round as I clear my throat. ‘What are you staring at? Get to your dorm. Now!’

  *

  Wow. Destiny lied to Mrs H. She must have told her she’d accidentally wiped her staff pass because she was on her final warning and she knew she’d be fired if she reported it as lost or stolen. She must have shat her pants when she realized it had gone. And now she might be fired. That has to be the best news I’ve heard all day.

  I glance at Mouse, walking alongside me up the stairs. Now she’s had a couple of puffs on her inhaler the colour has come back into her cheeks and she’s stopped making that horrible rasping noise. I shoot her a smile, even though Abi is walking directly behind us. I cannot wait until I tell her about the conversation I overhead between Mrs H. and Destiny. I wonder why Destiny was on her final warning. Maybe she was caught twisting another student’s arm behind their back?

  ‘In you go, girls.’ Abi shepherds us towards our dorm. ‘Please settle down quietly. I think we’ve all had quite enough drama for one night.’

  Mouse steps through the doorway to our dorm and immediately throws herself face down onto her bunk. The door clicks shut behind me as I walk through too, then clunks, locked.

  ‘Well, well, well …’ says a whiny, annoying voice as I climb the ladder to my bunk. ‘If it isn’t Thelma and Louise.’

  ‘Sod off, Jude.’

  ‘Can’t, we’re locked in for the night. So go on then? Where’ve you been?’

  I sigh. ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘That’s not true, is it?’

  I roll onto my side and stare at her. She’s sitting on her bunk cross-legged, still dressed in her day clothes. ‘What are you on about, Jude?’

  ‘I heard you tell Mrs H. that you and Mouse were in Israel’s en suite.’

  ‘You eavesdropped at the door. Congratulations.’

  ‘You were lucky that’s all I did.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  She smirks. ‘Well, Stuart and Abi might not know whether you and Mouse were in the bathroom but I know for a fact that you weren’t.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s funny, because I was sitting on Jez’s bunk after he was punched on the nose by Josh. I had to go into the en suite to get some toilet paper to help stop the blood. And I didn’t see either of you in there.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘No, Drew.’ She shifts forward. ‘You’re lying. And you’re going to tell me exactly where you were or I’m going to have a little word with Mrs H.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  For the last ten minutes Mouse and I have been sitting on beanbags in a corner of the rec room pretending to read the books on our laps, trying to work out what the hell we’re going to do about Jude and her threat to expose us.

  ‘I think we should ignore her,’ Mouse says. ‘She hasn’t got the first clue where we were last night.’

  ‘No, but she knows where we weren’t and if she tells Mrs H. or one of the friends –’

  ‘Then what? No one can prove anything. The CCTV was down.’

  I give her a sideways look. ‘That was a lucky coincidence, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The timing. The CCTV was down for the exact length of time that we were in the basement.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Do you think it was Mason?’

  ‘Must have been. But why would he go to the CCTV room, wherever that is, instead of the basement?’

  ‘Maybe he wanted to give us a better chance of escaping.’

  I laugh. ‘Have you met my brother? He’s not exactly the selfless type.’

  She shrugs. ‘Maybe Destiny turned it off on purpose.’

  ‘To help us escape? Are you kidding? She nearly twisted my arm off the other day.’ I slump back against the beanbag and stare at the smooth white ceiling. ‘Whatever happened, it doesn’t help us with the Jude problem.’

  ‘You know what we need to do?’ Mouse raises her book so the cover shields her face from the CCTV camera on the other side of the room. ‘We need to kill her.’

  ‘What?!’ I stare at her in horror.

  ‘No? You don’t like that idea? How about we cut her tongue out? Or cover her mouth in duct tape and hide her body somewhere?’ She laughs. ‘I’m kidding, Drew.’

  I smile. ‘You look remarkably normal for a psychopath.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive, Ms Finch.’

  We lapse back into silence again and I glance at my watch. It’s 11.58 a.m. and Jude is having a therapy session. In another two minutes she’ll be free to start stalking us again. We need to think of something.

  ‘Could we get her fast-tracked to treatment?’ I say.

  ‘How?

  ‘I dunno. We stage something. Make it look like she’s broken one of the rules.’

  ‘It would have to be pretty bad to get her fast-tracked.’

  ‘Isolation then. Israel was sent to isolation for speaking up in assembly but we can’t make her do something like that. We can’t force her to do anything.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mouse says, her face lighting up. ‘She really fancies Jez. We could convince him to kiss her in front of Mrs H. or Doctor Rothwell.’

  I shake my head. ‘He’d get into trouble too. And anyway, you only got a warning for hugging Mason. What else is on the rules list?’

  ‘Breaking stuff?’

  I shake my head. ‘Nah.’

  ‘Food in dorms?’

  ‘Not bad enough.’

  ‘Contacting someone on the outside?’

  ‘How could we do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  We fall silent again, both of us racking our brains for a solution.

  ‘Stealing!’ we both say in unison.

  ‘Yes.’ I grip Mouse’s arm, making her squeak. ‘We could nick stuff from the other students and plant it in Jude’s bunk.’

  Mouse raises her eyebrows and nods slowly as though considering the proposition. ‘I could certainly help with that …’

  ‘And then we “discover” it and report it to Stuart or whoever.’

  ‘I like it. But how do we keep her off our backs until then? We won’t be able to get into the dorms until later tonight.’

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ I say.

  *

  ‘You were trying to escape?’ Jude says, her eyes lighting up. ‘How?’

  Mouse, sitting at the lunch table on the other side of her, flashes her eyebrows at me, horrified.

  ‘Jude.’ I press a finger to my lips. ‘Keep your bloody voice down.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ She scans the faces of the kids sitting opposite us to check they’re not listening then hisses in my ear, ‘How were you trying to escape?’

  ‘We were going through the dorms,’ I whisper, keeping one eye on Abi who’s standing at the end of our table trying to encourage a sobbing new arrival to eat something. ‘We were looking for weapons.’

  ‘WEAPONS!’

  I slap a hand over Jude’s mouth. ‘For God’s sake. Can you please keep quiet? This is the exact reason we didn’t tell you about the plan. You’re a such a bl
oody big gob.’

  ‘What weapons?’ says Polly, across the table, laying down her fork.

  ‘The ones you need to complete level four of “Bloodborne”,’ I say, removing my hand from Jude’s mouth. ‘I don’t want the boys to know.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looks away again, disinterested.

  Mouse leans forward and gives me a puzzled look. As far as she knows the plan is still to nick stuff and plant it in Jude’s bunk. The bell rang for lunch before I could tell her about my new and improved plan: Jude steals things herself and gets caught in the act.

  ‘What do you need weapons for?’ Jude asks, keeping her voice low.

  ‘Why do you think?’ I say. ‘We need to get one of the friends to hand over their staff pass so we can get out.’

  ‘It would never work.’ She shakes her head but her eyes are wide and intrigued.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’d be on you like flies. You wouldn’t get through more than one door before they shut the whole place down.’

  ‘Not if we lured Abi or whoever into an en suite and took it from her there.’ This part of the plan is a lie. We won’t be collecting weapons or tying up any of the friends, but I’m astonished at how quickly I’m making this up. If they let us do things like this for English GCSE I’d get top marks.

  ‘You’d need rope or masking tape,’ Jude says. ‘If you wanted to stop her from raising the alarm.’

  Jesus, what is it with my room-mates and their love of tying people up?

  ‘That’s right. And that’s where you come in. We’ll source the weapons and you’ll source the other stuff – hairbands, dressing gown ties, whatever you can find.’

  ‘Cool, cool …’ Jude twists round to look at Mouse. ‘I’m in on the plan.’

  Mouse frowns. ‘What plan?’

  The excited look in Jude’s eyes fades and her expression grows hard and suspicious as she looks back at me. ‘Is this some kind of a wind-up? Like your Zara Fox story?’

  ‘No. I swear. Look, Jude, if you don’t want to be part of this you don’t have to be.’

  ‘If it is true what’s to stop me telling someone?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Something about this doesn’t add up.’ Her eyes narrow as she studies my face. My stomach clenches in response. Telling her a half-truth was a big risk. There was always the possibility she’d tell on us but I’ve been studying Jude since I got here. She hates feeling excluded. She has to be part of everything or she feels like she’s missing out. Despite her bravado it really bugs her that me and Mouse have grown so close. But is her desire to screw things up for me greater than her need to belong?

  ‘Tell someone if you want, Jude,’ I say. ‘But if Mouse and I are sent to isolation or treatment we’ll still find a way out and you’ll end up like those brainless zombies at assembly.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’ She pulls a scornful face. ‘No one’s going to change me. They can make me go to therapy or give me pills to swallow but, whatever the treatment is, I’ll still be me. I’m stronger than you think, Drew.’

  ‘I’m not doubting your strength, Jude. But you didn’t see what those post-treatment kids were like when they got here. Mouse did. Didn’t you, Mouse?’

  I lean back in my chair as Mouse tells Jude what the post-treatment kids used to be like. It’s freezing cold in the canteen today and I’m shivering despite my T-shirt and hoody. As Mouse continues to talk to Jude, I scan the canteen. There’s been no sign of Destiny all day and –

  My breath catches in my throat as the door to the rec room opens and Mason, flanked by Stuart, walks in. He’s wearing a canteen staff uniform again – green trousers and a pale green polo shirt. His eyes rest on me as he walks directly past our table but his face doesn’t register any emotion. He thinks the plan to escape was a wind-up. He probably hates my guts for telling him to go down to the basement and then abandoning him there.

  ‘Drew?’ I feel a sharp pain in my side. ‘Why are you staring at that boy? Do you fancy him or something?’

  Jude is staring at me, irritated. ‘Did you hear a word I just said?’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. I was … I was just lost in thought. Thinking about the plan, you know.’

  Her frown remains but her voice loses its irritable tone. ‘I was just saying that I can’t believe more kids don’t know about the treatment. I can’t believe we’re all being kept in the dark about it. Someone needs to tell them about it.’

  ‘You can’t tell them,’ I snap. ‘There would be a riot.’

  ‘Well maybe there should be.’

  I stop listening as she continues to argue her point. On the other side of the room, Mason is stacking trays with Stuart glued to his side. Only Stuart isn’t paying him any attention. He’s scanning the faces at the table, looking for someone.

  ‘Drew!’ Jude tugs on my sleeve. ‘If you think ignoring me is going to make me shut up about this then you’ve got another thing coming. Jez is being let out of the san later today, I’m definitely going to tell –’

  ‘Megan!’ Stuart slaps a hand on her shoulder, making us all jump. ‘I am the bearer of good news.’

  ‘What … what news?’ She stares up at him with startled eyes.

  ‘Don’t look so scared! It’s good news, I said. Guess who’s off to pre-treatment after tomorrow’s assembly?’

  All the colour blanches from her cheeks. ‘Me?’ She points at her chest with a quivering hand.

  ‘Yes, you. It’s normally a surprise but you’ve been here so long I thought I’d let you know. Save you feeling anxious tomorrow. You’re one step closer to going home, Megan Jones. Congratulations.’

  ‘But … but …’ Megan’s eyes meet mine. I have never seen her look so scared. This changes everything. We need to leave tonight.

  ‘Excuse me, Stuart.’

  I jolt at the sound of my brother’s voice. He’s standing directly behind my chair.

  ‘Should I clear the tables of trays? I’ve stacked up the ones that have already been returned.’

  ‘No, no.’ Stuart waves him away. ‘People are still eating. Go and wait by the stand, please.’

  Mason, I mentally plead as my brother walks away, Mason, turn around.

  But he doesn’t turn round. He spends the whole of lunch with his back to me. He doesn’t look at me once, not even when the bell rings for lessons and we file out of the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I don’t know how Mouse was feeling during maths but I wrote the same word three times in English before I realized what I’d done. Concentration isn’t one of my strongpoints in lessons anyway, but it completely vanished today. I was told off twice for staring into space and only paid attention when the teacher told me she’d give me a verbal warning if I didn’t start listening. I did as I was told but my subconscious was still whirring away, trying to work how to keep Jude quiet, get in touch with Mason, and hatch an escape plan before Mouse is transferred to pre-treatment tomorrow. We were lucky things kicked off in the dorms last night, but there’s no way we’ll be that lucky again. We’ll have to try to sneak out during rec. But how?

  *

  Mouse sidles up to me as I walk through the rec room, towards the door that leads to the café.

  ‘We haven’t got long to chat,’ she says, her voice tight and small. ‘I managed to get out of maths before Jude but she’ll catch up with me soon. What are we going to do?’

  My heart twists at the sight of her desperate, hopeful face. She’s relying on me to come up with a plan and I haven’t got one.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, then lower my voice as Josh and Callum push past us in their hurry to get to the pool table first. ‘But we need to leave tonight.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The light fades from Mouse’s eyes. Jude is pushing her way through the crowd at the door. She raises a hand and waves.

  ‘Meg, could you keep Jude distracted, just for half an hour or so
so I’ve got some time to think.’

  ‘Sure.’ She nods. ‘I’ll ask her if she wants to go to the cinema.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Have you got any ideas at all?’ she asks desperately.

  I shake my head. ‘Mouse, I’m sorry I –’

  ‘Hello, hello!’ Jude skips up to us and grabs us both by the elbows. ‘So? Any news on the …’ she looks around furtively – she couldn’t look dodgier if she tried ‘…the you – know – what?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I say.

  ‘Oh.’ Her face falls.

  ‘Look, Jude, what you said during breakfast about telling Jez. Were you serious?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  I try very hard not to roll my eyes. Asking Mouse to tell her about the treatment was such a bad idea. We stood on either side of her during assembly to make sure she didn’t talk to anyone but Mouse took a risk leaving her behind in maths. She could easily have blurted something out to another student, or worse, a teacher. But by keeping her close we’re never going to get the chance to escape. It’s catch-22. The only solution is to take her with us and I really, really don’t want to do that.

  ‘I’m going to the cinema,’ Mouse says brightly. ‘Apparently they’re showing a short film about a woman on a series of disastrous blind dates. Want to see it with me, Jude?’

  Jude looks at me. ‘Are you going?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I am,’ I lie.

  ‘Then why are you both heading for the café?’

  ‘Snacks,’ I say. ‘And drinks.’ I glance at my watch. ‘Didn’t you say it started at 11.15, Megan? You’d better get going. Want me to get you anything, Jude?’

  ‘I’ll come to the café with you.’

  Mouse, standing behind Jude, flashes me a look of despair.

  ‘You can come if you want, Jude,’ I say casually. ‘Actually, I think Jez and Polly would appreciate a bit of alone time.’

  ‘What?’ She narrows her eyes.

  ‘Yeah … um … I heard Polly saying they were going on a first date when Jez gets out of the san. It was the cinema, wasn’t it, Mouse? Not a stroll round the running track later?’

  Mouse doesn’t get chance to reply. Jude takes off like a bullet from gun.