Part 6 (1/2)

'How would you like your eggs, dear?' she asked.

'Just there, please,' I said, pointing at the small s.p.a.ce on my plate that wasn't taken by bacon or toast.

Mrs Butcher laughed. 'You're funny, sweetie. I meant do you want them fried, poached or scrambled?'

'Oh,' I said, feeling my face redden. I hadn't been trying to be funny. 'Fried, please,' I mumbled.

I took my tray and scanned the cafeteria for somewhere to sit. My eyes caught Charlotte's table and I began moving towards it. The girls all looked up and stared at me. Claudia smiled and I smiled back. Then I saw Inga jab Claudia in the ribs.

By the time I reached their table, I knew I had made a mistake. There was just something about their eyes eyes, Connolly. And there was a smell in the air. A smell of aggression.

Still, I couldn't simply turn and walk away, so I said, 'May I sit here? Charlotte?'

Charlotte's eyes seemed paler than yesterday. Icier. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'You made your decision. You chose those other girls. The ferals. ferals. You can't have it both ways.' You can't have it both ways.'

'Oh,' I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say. I felt humiliated.

'You had every opportunity to do the right thing,' Inga said. 'You were lucky. Not every girl who starts here gets a free pa.s.s into our group. You had an advantage and you stuffed up. Big time.'

'We can't be seen a.s.sociating with someone who also a.s.sociates with them them. It would ruin our reputations,' Amy added, a hint of a smug smile tugging her glossy lips upwards.

I looked from one girl to the next. A voice inside my head said, Walk away. Save your energy for when the fight is worth it. Walk away. Save your energy for when the fight is worth it.

And, I reasoned, when I have a chance of winning.

'Okay, well, enjoy your breakfast,' I said and made to walk away. A moment later I found myself hurtling forwards, eggs and juice cascading into the air and all over my uniform. Something ... or someone someone had tripped me. had tripped me.

'Oops,' said Kelly, giggling. 'That really was an accident.'

Later, after mathematics cla.s.s, I was leaving the room when I heard Laurel's voice call out, 'Tessa!'

'Yes?' I said, turning around to face her, expecting to see her smiling her usual daffy smile at me. Instead, her face was serious.

'Turn around,' she said. I did so, curiously. I felt a sc.r.a.ping sensation on my back and immediately grew fearful.

My scars.

She touched my scars.

'What are you doing?' I exclaimed, wheeling around. My scars felt as though red hot pokers were pressed against them.

Laurel held out a small square of yellow paper. On it was the word 'Freak'.

'What ... is it for? What does it mean mean?'

'Amy put it on your back,' Laurel sighed. 'She does that sometimes. It's stupid. She thinks it's funny. Don't worry about her. She's a stupid, giant troll, and she has pimples on her back. I saw them at swimming carnival. Come on. Let's get out of here.'

I looked behind me to Charlotte and her friends. They were all cackling as though someone had told them the funniest joke ever. Except Claudia. Claudia looked at me with an expression on her face that seemed to be a mixture of guilt and pity. But she hadn't stopped Amy, had she? She hadn't come after me and warned me.

She was scared, I realised. Scared of Charlotte. Scared of being made an outcast, like I was.

Laurel and I walked towards our lockers.

I could tell from several yards away that there was something different about my locker. Instead of the plain, s.h.i.+ny metal that was usually its facade, it now had slashes of bold red adorning it. My pace quickened and I soon found myself at my locker, reading the words 'Tessa Connolly is an untouchable'.

'What does that mean?' I asked Laurel.

'It means you crossed them,' she said. 'It's happened to all of us. You cross Charlotte's royal court, you're untouchable. It means none of the other girls are allowed to be friends with you.'

I remembered what Harriet had told me: 'Don't mess with the in-crowd or they will mess you back.' 'Don't mess with the in-crowd or they will mess you back.'

I felt tears p.r.i.c.kle at my eyes. 'So you and Erin, and Rhiannah and Harriet and Sara ... you won't be friends with me any more?'

Laurel finally smiled. 'Oh, no. We We can still be mates with you,' she said. 'We're untouchables too.' can still be mates with you,' she said. 'We're untouchables too.'

It was a comfort, Connolly, but still, I felt nauseated and guilty. I thought you would be disappointed in me. You wanted me to do well at school, and be friends with Charlotte, and I had failed.

'Come on, Tess,' said Laurel, seeing my miserable expression. 'It's not so bad. You've still got us. And you don't want to be friends with those cows anyway. They'll suck the life out of you. Stick with us freaks and you'll have a much better time.'

I smiled at Laurel. She was right. I did have a better time with her, and with Rhiannah's gang, than I had with Charlotte and her friends. Perhaps this 'untouchable' business was for the best.

'That's the spirit,' said Laurel. 'Now, come with me. I have a stash of doughnuts in my room. They cure all.'

You didn't warn me about this, Connolly.

I'm not mad at you. You had so much to think about; so much to remember to tell me about that I don't blame you for forgetting this. And, besides, you probably a.s.sumed I would know.

After all, it's my my body. body.

I didn't didn't know, though. I didn't know that my body would do this. know, though. I didn't know that my body would do this.

We were in history one of the cla.s.ses that Rhiannah and I shared. We were learning about Tasmania in colonial times, and I had just surprised Mr Beagle (and myself), by remembering that the first name for Tasmania was Van Diemen's Land, and that the colony was named after Anthony Van Diemen, who was the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He was the one who sent the explorer, Abel Tasman, on his voyage of discovery in 1642, and so Tasman named Van Diemen's Land in his honour.

I didn't know how much my teachers had been told about my lost memory. I supposed they must have been told something, so I would not be unfairly penalised in cla.s.s.

My cla.s.smates knew only that I had been through a trauma, though they didn't know the nature of it. Ms Hindmarsh and I had a long conversation about how much to tell the other students. She knew most of what had happened (the parts you and I knew, anyway), and she wanted to know how much I wanted made public.

'I think we should tell them I am an orphan and that I was in hospital,' I said, after thinking for a few moments. 'But I think I don't want them to know about my memory. And I don't want them to know I was found on the mountain, in the condition condition I was in.' I was in.'

'That's probably for the best,' said Ms Hindmarsh, smiling. 'We wouldn't want the girls to panic, thinking there is an attacker out there not that I think that's what happened to you. I just know how quickly hysteria can spread with those girls. And the parents. We don't want parents to think that this is an unsafe place to send their girls. Cascade Falls is a very safe place for girls ...'

Ms Hindmarsh's voice trailed off and her eyes became dreamy and wistful. I thought, not for the first time, that while she seemed effervescent and jolly on the outside, there were worlds inside Ms Hindmarsh that were very well hidden.

She cleared her throat. 'I know you know about Cat Connolly,' she said. 'And while her disappearance was, oh ... just horrible for all of us, I wouldn't want you to think that this school was at fault, Tessa. n.o.body knows exactly what happened that day, but it wasn't our fault.'

I wondered who Ms Hindmarsh was trying to convince. Me or herself.

Ms Hindmarsh continued. 'I think it's a really sensible idea to tell your cla.s.smates you have been in hospital. 'It will help them understand you.'