Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (20 page)

Asking for help has never been my strong
point, but I know that if all of this was happening back home, I’d have told
Mum by now. Mum’s not here, but Dad and Emma are the next best thing. I pull
the kimono wrap around me and slip into the living room just as they arrive home.
It’s not the best timing in the world, but I can’t keep pretending that
everything’s OK – this SpiderWeb hate campaign is driving me crazy.

‘Feeling better?’ Dad asks
as Emma pours him a glass of wine. ‘It isn’t good to give in to these
things, Honey. This is an important year for you at school.’

I take a deep breath. ‘I wanted to
talk to you about that,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure I’m actually
settling in at Willowbank. It’s all gone a little bit wrong.’

Dad frowns. ‘Wrong?’ he
echoes. ‘What do you mean? Of course it hasn’t!’

Emma pats my shoulder.
‘You’re doing fine!’ she tells me. ‘Lots of studying, lovely
friends … Tara and Bennie are great!’

‘About that,’ I sigh.
‘We’ve kind of fallen out.’

‘I was always falling out with
friends at school,’ Emma says. ‘It’ll blow over!’

I bite my lip. Emma hasn’t got a
clue – this isn’t a row about a borrowed eyeshadow or a copied homework;
it’s way more complicated than that.

‘You’re not
listening,’ I say. ‘I’m in real trouble. Everything’s gone
wrong! Someone is posting really horrible stuff on my SpiderWeb page and half the
school are chipping in with comments –’

Dad slams his glass down, spilling red
wine on to the pale oak table.

‘For goodness’ sake,
Honey!’ he snaps. ‘You’re fifteen, not five! If you don’t
like the things people post online, stay off the Internet. As for school, no,
it’s not easy – get used to it! Sometimes in life you have to do things
you’re not keen on. Work hard, pass your exams, don’t let a silly
schoolgirl tiff derail you!’

Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them
back, defiant.

‘Dad,’ I whisper, ‘you
said that if Willowbank didn’t work out I could try the other school. I just
think –’

‘That’s enough!’ Dad
growls. ‘Can’t you see, Honey, there’s a pattern in all of this?
You’re addicted to trouble. You like the fuss, you like the drama. Your
mother’s let you get away with murder. Well, not any more! You’ve been
given a chance to start over – don’t throw it all away!’

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I say.
‘It’s great to know you’re always there for me.’

Dad’s still yelling an answer to
that as I run to my room and slam the door behind me. He may as well have slapped my
face – he’s told me flat out that he doesn’t have time for my troubles.
I love him more than anyone else in the world – you don’t get to choose who
you love – but I’m worn out with trying to make him love me back.

He left when I was twelve. I told myself
it was a mistake, that he’d come back, but when he didn’t, the hurt
curdled into anger and I started smashing up everything I had left. I thought that
if he could see how upset I was, he’d come back, reach out his arms and hold
me tight, safe from all the chaos. When he moved to Australia it felt like the worst
rejection ever; I thought that if I could somehow get there too, everything would be
all right.

Well, I got to Australia, I got
Dad’s attention. I managed to keep it for two or three whole days, and then
the novelty of having his long-lost daughter around wore off for Dad. I was just one
more chore to take up his time, demanding, annoying, scrambling for the crumbs of
his attention like a dog under the table. It’s not as if it’s any better
for Emma – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Dad’s new happy
family set-up is even shakier than the one he walked away from in Somerset.

I’m in trouble, real trouble, and
my own dad does not want to know.

Next morning, I trick Emma into
allowing me another day off school, pressing a hot flannel against my forehead to
give the impression of a fever. Dad barely looks up as I trail across the kitchen to
plead my case; if I fell down dead in the middle of the breakfast area I think
he’d complain that I was cluttering the place up. Emma tells me they’re
meeting friends for dinner and will be back late, but to call if I need anything.
Yeah, right.

I prop the mirror on to my desk, ready
to sketch out another self-portrait, but as I adjust the angle the mirror slips and
falls down behind. When I move the desk to rescue it, I see that the mirror has
cracked and shattered, like a jagged glass spider’s web. Seven years’
bad luck … that’s all I need.

Peering into the broken mirror I see a
scared, broken girl, her features sliced up into fragments. It’s how I feel
inside, how I’ve felt for a long time. I pick up a pencil and capture the
image on paper, over and over. I try not to think about the laptop sitting in the
corner of the room, it’s green power-light taunting me. I don’t want to
look; I daren’t, but it’s all I can think about.

When I’m too tired to draw any
more I hunt through the jewellery kit Mum bought me for Christmas, pulling out a
card of thin silver wire, soft enough to cut with scissors, and a roll of
see-through nylon line. Slowly, I prise chunks of broken glass away from the mirror,
wrapping each one with a criss-cross of wire until thirty shards of mirror hang in
the bedroom window; suspended on fishing line, spinning softly, catching the light
like crystals.

I am aiming for a curtain effect, so
that everything I see is shattered and spoilt. Instead, the shards snatch up rays of
sunlight like a prism, sending dozens of tiny rainbows dancing all around me.

Finally, all out of distractions and
willpower, I give in and check SpiderWeb. All of yesterday’s deleted pictures
are back. There’s a new one too, a close-up, smiley photo of me that Emma took
on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. It isn’t sleazy, it isn’t snarky
– it’s just ripped right down the middle and spattered with what looks like
blood. I feel physically sick.

Surfie16 has already added a
comment.

Things not working out in
Australia, Honey? Looks like you’re finally losing it. Or is this just a
clever way of telling us you’re two-faced?

With fingers cut and bleeding from a
dozen tiny glass cuts, I type out a message.

Who are you? Why are you doing
this?

Instinct tells me he’s involved,
and the reply confirms it.

You’ll find out soon
enough.

Fear slides down my spine like sweat.
Remembering Ash’s advice, I open up my SpiderWeb settings and click on Delete
Account. Everything finally disappears, and the relief is instant, liberating. Why
did I take so long to let go? I don’t need SpiderWeb; for the last few days
I’ve felt like a fly, trapped inside it, waiting to be picked apart by some
invisible spider. The fallout from all of this will take some cleaning up, but at
last the page has gone. The damage stops here.

Over on the bedside table, my iPhone
bleeps and I open my text messages, looking for messages from Tara and Bennie. The
screen flashes up an unknown number.

Nobody likes you, English girl.
Nobody ever will.

I drop the phone on to the floor, my
fingers shaking, but it bleeps again.

Worried yet? You should be.
I’m watching you.

I go cold all over. I run to the window,
but my bedroom looks out on to the garden; there is nobody there, nobody watching.
It’s just somebody trying to scare me, and doing a great job of it. It buzzes
a third time.

Don’t believe me? You will. I
know all about you … all the secrets you thought you’d left
behind. And by the time I’m finished, everyone else will know them
too.

Another text buzzes through, and I force
myself to look, in spite of everything.

Check your SpiderWeb …

I know I shouldn’t; I know that
I’ve deleted my page now, that the whole trolling thing should be over, even
if the texting is not. Still, I find myself opening up my laptop, clicking on the
bookmark to SpiderWeb.

And it’s still there. Every
hideous, leering photograph, every snarky, spiteful comment, all of it. Nausea rolls
through my body in waves. I can’t delete the posts and I can’t
deactivate the page … I can’t do anything at all to stop it. Can
I?

Slowly, the nausea turns to fury. I want
to rewind, wipe out the last two months, erase this whole mess. Looking through the
curtain of spinning glass shards, I see the swimming pool, glinting turquoise in the
sun.

I run outside, carrying my laptop and
iPhone, my bare feet burning on the hot flagstones, breathing in the scent of
honeysuckle, heavy, intoxicating. One good throw is all it takes; I watch both
iPhone and laptop sink down through the turquoise water, moving more slowly than
you’d think. I’m looking for relief, rescue, but instead my eyes fill
with tears; this won’t change a thing because the hacker still has control of
my SpiderWeb page. I’m trapped, helpless.

Crouched on the edge of the pool, I let
myself fall forward, diving down to the bottom. I have some vague idea of rescuing
the laptop, but of course, that would be pointless; it’s wrecked now, ruined.
It’s funny how quiet it is underwater. Everything is slower, softer; the world
seems muffled, far away. Of course, the minute I touch the blue tiles at the bottom
I start to float up again, so, stubborn, I catch hold of the foot of the ladder and
hold on. I want to prolong the moment, hang on to the feeling of peace. And then it
becomes a challenge, a dare. My lungs burn and bubbles of air escape, rising up to
the surface like a warning flare. My cut fingers are screaming with pain as the
chlorine burns them, but my hands hold tight and my chest aches and my head fills up
with darkness.

I take a great gulp in, swallowing
water, and suddenly I am breaking the surface, lungs bursting, floundering for the
side. I drag myself out of the pool and huddle on the grass, shaking, sucking in
long, gasping breaths. I’m so shocked my mind can’t make sense of
anything, and shame and self-pity seep through my body like poison. I sit like that
for a long time, until my breathing calms and my PJs have dried against my skin.
After a little while the sun eases my shivers and I notice the deep blue sky, the
golden sun, the scent of jasmine. I hear the flutter of parakeets darting between
the trees like brief flashes of rainbow, and I stretch out under the honeysuckle and
let myself fall into sleep.

When I wake, there are three figures
crossing the driveway, two of them in familiar blue uniform. Tara, Bennie and Ash
walk towards me across the grass, and for a moment I don’t know whether to be
happy or sad or scared or ashamed. Maybe there’s a bit of all those
things.

‘Hey,’ Ash says.
‘Don’t tell me. You decided to go for the whole swim-in-your-clothes
thing again. English girls … crazy!’

This is a little too close for comfort,
and even Ash seems to know it. His soft brown eyes are dark with worry.

‘I didn’t do it,’ I
whisper as my friends kneel down on the grass beside me. ‘Post that diary
thing – I promise I didn’t. I wrote it, but it was meant to be private; if you
saw the whole thing you’d see that actually it was all about how much I cared
–’

‘We know,’ Tara interrupts.
‘We’ve been trying to tell you, but you haven’t answered our texts
or messages.’

‘My iPhone’s been hacked,
blocked,’ I say, eyes drifting towards the pool. ‘And now it’s
broken. My laptop too …’

Ash reaches across and takes my hand,
and I find a bit of strength in that.

‘We know about the hacking,’
Bennie is saying. ‘We’ve seen the pictures and we know you were telling
the truth. I’m sorry we doubted you, Honey. It’s sick!’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I
say. ‘It’s driving me a little bit crazy, but … the worst of
it was thinking I’d lost you guys. I think you’re amazing, both of you.
I’ve been miserable, thinking you hated me.’

Bennie grins. ‘We don’t do
hate,’ she says simply. ‘Besides, it’d take more than a few silly
words to wreck this friendship.’

‘We’re mates,’ Tara
chimes in. ‘You’re stuck with us.’

Seconds later, the three of us are
clinging together in a clumsy, emotional hug. I break away briefly to drag Ash into
it too, and we hang on tight and hold each other close, and a little bit of the pain
inside me peels away.

Later, after I’ve showered and
changed and combed my hair, we sit in the kitchen drinking ice-cold orange juice.
Turns out that Ash went over to Willowbank at lunchtime to tell Tara and Bennie
about yesterday, and how worried he was; the three of them have come straight from
school, Ash arranging cover for his beach-cafe shift. I have friends who actually
care about me, which is kind of amazing.

‘We have to figure out who’s
doing this, and why,’ Tara says. ‘If the hacker really is Surfie16 and
Surfie16 isn’t Riley … then who? Do you have any enemies?’

‘Looks like it,’ I say.
‘Lucky me, huh? I wondered about Liane, but I don’t think she’d do
this. Would she?’

‘Don’t think so,’ Tara
says. ‘She’s just a gossipy, spiteful girl – I think she’s
reacting to it all, but I don’t think she’s actually behind it. It has
to be someone with a reason to lash out.’

‘How about Cherry?’ Bennie
suggests. ‘The stepsister from hell?’

I frown. I can’t stand Cherry, but
I cannot imagine her writing the toxic, hateful stuff of the last few days.

‘There’s a problem with that
theory,’ I say. ‘She’s several thousand miles away.’

Ash raises an eyebrow. ‘We
can’t assume it’s someone local,’ he points out.
‘Let’s look at every possibility. Could someone have your
password?’

I blink. I’ve had the same
password for just about everything since I was thirteen and first had a SpiderWeb
page. At Tanglewood we all knew each other’s, because we shared a computer and
people were always forgetting to logout. That puts Cherry in the frame again, of
course.