“Oh, that’s brilliant!” Chloe grinned. “Thank God there’s a sink in this room so we can wash our hands after. This is so vile.”
We set to work, making retching sounds as we applied the shit to the canvas, like we were little kids doing finger-painting. It was disgusting, but it was worth it when we were done. And after we washed our hands, we stepped back to admire our masterpiece.
“Finished!” Chloe screeched, picking up her phone and filming the completed project at a closer angle. “Poppy’s artistic talent!”
The whole thing looked like a twisted rebellion of an art project. The original painting was still visible underneath our destruction, but now with our additions it seemed like a satire, a mockery of a serious piece of work.
It was perfect. It was grotesque.
At the time we thought it was such a laugh. She wasn’t meant to take it so seriously.
Okay. Maybe that’s not fair. We did mean for her to take it seriously and get upset. But we didn’t know she’d harbour a grudge about it for ten years. We just didn’t think it was that bad.
Yeah. How wrong we were.
“Poppy.” My voice is nothing more than a whisper, like I’m trying to calm a wild animal.
“All these years you’ve had to think about what you did, and you did nothing to amend your ways,” Poppy says. “You tortured me throughout secondary school, never letting me have a moment’s peace. Except for my art. And then you took that too. You destroyed the one thing that gave me joy in my life—my artwork. And then you agreed to this jolly little hen party, all expenses paid—and said nothing about it.”
“I know I can’t change what happened, but I’m so sorry,” I say. “If there is anything, anything at all, I promise you, I will do it. Please don’t . . .” I’m embarrassed at the way fear makes my voice break.
“It’s too late,” Poppy says.
“It’s never too late,” I say. “You’re here in front of me, talking. We can make this okay. Whatever it is you want me to do.”
I silently beg her: Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die. My fingers tremble as they wrap further around the knife handle.
“Tanya knew the moment I walked into her hut I was going to kill her,” she murmurs. “I’d knocked on the door—polite, unsuspecting. I came in and locked it behind me. She gave a good fight. I’m sure you saw that, practically everything was knocked over. But it’s funny, do you know what she said to me as she lay there dying?”
My body is so preoccupied with terror it takes me a second to realise she wants a response. I shake my head.
“She said she was sorry. That she deserved it. That she’d been struggling for years with the guilt. But she never tried to reach out to me. Never tried to make amends. I think she was using her guilt as an excuse for everything that had happened to her.”
“She wanted to make it up to you,” I whisper. “She said as much when we got the invitations. She felt worse than the rest of us. I think because she had been your friend when you were little.”
“I told her the truth in the end. And do you know what she said?”
“What?” The truth?
“She said, ‘Then I really do deserve this.’ Tanya deserved to die for what she did. Chloe and Esther, and you too.”
“You’re alive,” I say, aware of her standing up, terrified of what she might do next. “You’re here. I’m sorry. We can fix this somehow. We’ll tell Robin Chloe died after hitting her head, and that Esther killed Tanya, and it was self-defence on my part. You don’t have to do this.”
Poppy shakes her head at me. “It is too late.”
“It’s not!”
“It is.”
“We can fix this,” I continue desperately.
“There is no fixing this. I’m not Poppy. Don’t you see? Poppy is already dead.”
“What?”
“She died almost ten years ago,” she says. “Poppy killed herself.”
Thirty-Four
Poppy
August 21, 2013
Dear Diary,
It’s A Level Results Day today and I want to die.
What is death like? I went to my granddad’s funeral, almost ten years ago now. He was old and ill and very nearly a hundred, so even though people were sad they kept saying what a great long life he lived. I don’t really remember him. All I kept thinking about was whether his favourite books were in the coffin with him, and whether it was cold. Now I know that’s silly, obviously he isn’t cold, he’s dead. But maybe you are cold when you’re dead.
I guess I’ll find out soon. If things don’t go to plan.
I didn’t show up to any of my exams, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. My art portfolio, which I had spent months carefully preparing, was now worthless after I failed in my final project. I burned it in the garden, watching it melt away into nothing. I burned the Slade portfolio too, the one that had got me my interview in the first place. It was worthless now after all. Mum and Dad begged me to sit my other exams. Even Wendy begged me. They said I was throwing my future away. That I shouldn’t let failing Art impact my entire life.
Today, I looked at the school website and saw everyone celebrating the exam successes. There was a photograph of Annabel and a couple of smart boys named Oscar and Lucas opening their results and jumping in the air, smiles on their faces. The title read: “Top Marks for Top Students!” I, of course, wasn’t mentioned, even though I knew if I had done my exams as planned I’d be right there with them.
Underneath, there was a passage about the art department, and a picture of Ollie with his final piece project.
My painting was better. Well . . . it was. Before they destroyed it.
It said Ollie had managed to get a place at Slade after all. Was that my place? Did me getting kicked off enable him to get in? I remembered him saying he was on a reserve list. He had been so upset when I got in and he didn’t. Look who would be laughing now.
Facebook showed the celebrations that were continuing into the evening, parties being planned. Annabel had gotten all A grades. Esther had done really well too, while Tanya passed reasonably enough. Chloe had failed her A levels, getting all Ds, but from the pictures she didn’t seem to care. Other than Chloe, who was starting some kind of hairdressing apprenticeship, they would be off to university and whole new horizons, just like I was meant to be.
None of what had happened had affected them at all.
I mean, of course it didn’t. I was just a big joke to them.
Even though they were disappointed with what happened, Mum and Dad grew increasingly worried about me. They tried talking to me, and when that didn’t work, they forced me to the doctor’s, so now I have a weekly therapist. And antidepressants. But I don’t take them. I pretend to, then I store them in my bedside drawer inside a jewellery box, along with the knife I stole from the kitchen. That knife has become my constant companion.
They’re both waiting for me to be ready. But I have a plan first.
I haven’t been completely useless. I’ve seen people on Facebook, commenting about what happened with me and my art exam. Apparently there might be a video. Chloe filmed them all in the art room. So some people say anyway. No one has actually uploaded it, so it might not be true at all. But imagine that—a video, exonerating me. It could mean I get my place back if they actually showed it to anyone.
At the time I was too upset, but I realised there was an important missing piece of the puzzle I wasn’t focusing on.
Those four couldn’t have done it without someone to let them in. Each of us doing the exam was given a card key in order to access the room. Anyone not doing Art couldn’t have got through the door. So someone had to have helped them. Maybe even joined in. If I can just find out who that is, maybe I can change things. Slade will offer me my place after all.
But in order to do that, I have to speak to one of them. And there’s only one I ever could, even after how she treated me on that last day.
And if it doesn’t work?
I guess it’ll be time. Because there’s nothing left for me here.
August 25, 2013
Dear Diary,
I am ready.
I might as well write down what happened here. It gives me a little bit longer to—
I need to pull myself together. Just because I can’t write it down doesn’t mean I’m not ready. Back to yesterday.
Mum and Dad couldn’t know I was going out, not when I hadn’t since it all happened. They’d have too many questions. I waited until they went to work.
It’s so hard, thinking about those two. What I’m going to do to them. If they ever read this—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t strong enough. You couldn’t have done anything, I promise. None of this was your fault.
It was theirs.
My last hurdle was Wendy.
She was washing the dishes from breakfast, well-behaved as she always was nowadays, when I gave her a hug too. She turned, still with soapy hands, and hugged me back.
“What was that for?” she asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion immediately. Wendy, always so intelligent.
She’s going to be so amazing when she’s older.
“I’m going out today,” I said.