Torn (5 page)

Cass was the one person who wasn’t completely hating the idea of what was to come. All that
being active
sort of stuff comes naturally to her. Cass is mega-sporty. She’s on the hockey team, she does athletics AND she’s in the swimming club. God knows where she finds the energy. Organized sport is just so … blah. If I’m going to exercise, I prefer to do it alone so that other people are spared the gasping and general ineptitude. But not Cass – she’s up for any sport (except for netball, which is another thing
she thinks is beyond pathetic). Plus she was glad to get away from her brothers for a while.

The journey seemed never-ending. I was glad we were sitting near the front. Near the teachers. The back of the bus was Tara territory. I knew what it’d be like: Gemma, Sam and Danni hanging on her every word, laughing at things that weren’t funny. Well, that’s not exactly fair – Tara
was
funny. Mean, but funny. Unless her humour was at your expense, in which case it was just … horrible.

It was Miss Daley’s first school trip. She’d bought a new Berghaus fleece just for the occasion. Shame she’d forgotten to take the price tag off. I was worried that Tara (+3) would eat her for breakfast, so I leaned over and told her. She blushed something fierce and thanked me. Cass didn’t look impressed. Being nice to teachers is not a quality Cass appreciates in a best friend.

I wondered how old Daley was, and if she’d always wanted to be a teacher. When she was our age did she dream of supervising a bunch of over-educated, over-privileged teenage girls on a trip to deepest, darkest Scotland? Or maybe she wanted to be a doctor, or a rock star or a housewife? I finally settled on the idea that she’d wanted to be a writer, but being an English teacher was the next best thing. Maybe she taps away
at her laptop late into the night, long after she’s finished marking our essays. Maybe she sips a glass of Pinot Grigio and dreams of the day she can give it all up and write full-time. Or maybe my imagination just runs away from me sometimes.

About three hours into the journey, Polly Sutcliffe came and asked Daley when we’d be stopping at a service station. Daley told her we’d be stopping in an hour or so, and asked if she’d forgotten to bring any food.

Polly shook her head, embarrassed. ‘No, I’ve got food. Um … Tara just wanted to know.’

‘Well, if Tara wanted to know, then Tara could have got up off her backside and come to ask me herself, couldn’t she?’

Cass and I smirked at each other.

Polly blushed. ‘Oh I don’t mind. I fancied stretching my legs anyway.’
Yeah, right.
She scurried back up the aisle.

It was hard not to feel sorry for Polly. But it was just as hard to be entirely sympathetic. Polly had never been popular. She wasn’t one of the pretty girls or one of the sporty girls or even one of the super-brainy girls. Not that I was, either. But Polly was just
there
. On the edge of things, without any real friends. She got nasty bouts of eczema from time to
time, which made her even more awkward and self-conscious.

Whenever Polly was around, I felt bad. Like I should try and be her friend because no one else would. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. We probably didn’t have anything in common anyway. I was a coward. Everyone knows that your friends reflect on you, and I was worried about people lumping me in with Polly – one of the Untouchables. I’d been there before.

At least I tried to be nice to her. I smiled and said hello in the corridors, which is more than most of the others did. I let her borrow my notes when she was off sick that time last year. But that was as far as I was willing to go. And if I’m honest, Polly made me feel slightly uncomfortable. She was always
watching
. You’d be chatting and having a laugh in the canteen or the common room or the courtyard, and then you’d look round and there she’d be, sitting in a corner – watching … listening. It was as if she could blend in with her surroundings somehow and I was the only one who noticed. Sometimes I wondered if she was studying for some kind of How-To-Be-A-Normal-Teenage-Girl test. And then I’d feel mean and think that she was only watching because that was all that they (we)
allowed
her to do. She was not allowed in.

The only thing that Polly had going for her (in our eyes at least) was the fact that she could sing. Like, really well. And she wasn’t shy about doing it either. She would perform at the end-of-term concert and everyone would be amazed. It was almost like we forgot, year to year, that she had this incredible talent that made us all jealous. When Polly sang, she looked sort of beautiful.

As far as I was aware, Polly didn’t even cross Tara’s radar until about a year ago. Cass was the first one to notice that Polly had started following Tara around, acting like a little lapdog. Tara seemed to tolerate her, but that was all. She’d let Polly sit at her table at lunch. Polly would sit at the end of the table, reading (or pretending to read) a book, while Tara and Gemma and Sam and Danni chatted and laughed and ignored her. Everyone thought it was weird. No one else had sat at that table for at least two years. Cass’s theory was that Tara saw Polly as a pet. I wasn’t so sure.

I craned my neck to watch Polly head back to her seat. She stopped and said something to Tara, who was presiding over the coach from the middle seat right at the back. Then she sat down in the empty row just in front of Tara’s crew. Just before I turned away, Tara caught my eye. We looked at each other for a second or two before Cass thumped me on
the shoulder, wanting to show me a video on her phone.

That happened sometimes. I’d notice Tara looking at me or she’d notice me looking at her, and whenever it happened I thought,
I can’t believe we used to be friends
.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. Cass let me sit next to the window as soon as we got to the Scottish border and I gazed out at the passing scenery. It was like England, only wetter. There was crap music blaring out from the back of the bus. I
hate
being forced to listen to other people’s music, so I plugged myself into my iPod and turned it up loud. The rest of the world disappeared for a while.

I opened my eyes when the coach stopped. Cass laughed at me and said I’d been snoring. Which was a load of crap – I hadn’t even been asleep. A quick glance out the window confirmed it was still raining. We milled around getting soaked while the driver and Mr Miles pulled out our rucksacks and Daley went looking for the person in charge of the place. It wasn’t much to look at; a few cabins in the soggy woods. I’d checked it out on Google before we left. The middle of nowhere – lots of mountains, a creepy forest and a loch. I looked at my phone and sure enough, there was no reception. Not that it mattered, as Mr Miles had already made it very clear that this was to be a notech holiday. We’d be handing in our phones, iPods, BlackBerrys and anything else that would make the week even slightly bearable.

We eventually got out of the rain and into the
biggest of the buildings, which turned out to be a pine-panelled hall where we’d be having our meals. Rows of chairs were laid out facing a stage, and Daley told us to sit down. Cass and I sat in the back row. Three people were up on the stage, all looking superoutdoorsy in their primary-coloured fleeces. Daley had clearly made the right style choice.

A woman stepped forward and introduced herself. Her name was Jess and she had greying dreadlocks and a friendly face. She welcomed us to Loch Dunochar and told us what the next week had in store for us. Basically a lot of being outside in the pissing rain, running around in the woods and embarrassing ourselves in front of our peers. Well, that’s not exactly what she said, but that was pretty much the gist of it.
Getting back to nature
– that’s what she said. ‘How are we supposed to get
back
to nature when the closest we’ve ever been is London bloody Zoo or Camden on a Saturday night?’ I whispered to Cass. She rolled her eyes.

The guy standing next to Jess was clearly bored – he must have heard this spiel a hundred times before. He looked way too cool to be there: shaved head, eyebrow piercing and a tattoo peeking out from the sleeve of his fleece. He was wearing baggy shorts and flip-flops and his legs were tanned.
God knows how he
got a tan like that around here
. I couldn’t help staring at his calf muscles.

His name was Duncan and he had the nicest accent I’d ever heard. Turned out he was going to be in charge of most of the activities we’d be doing. I looked around and pretty much all of us were hanging on his every word. Tara was eyeing him up like a tasty snack. Clearly we were all thinking the same:
Maybe this week isn’t going to be so bad after all
. As soon as I thought that, a new worry came crashing down on me:
You are going to embarrass yourself in front of the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your life
.

The only ones who seemed immune to Duncan’s charms were Cass, who was staring out of the window, and Rae who was (as usual) surreptitiously plugged into her headphones and nibbling at her fingernails. A week without music was going to be a total nightmare for her.
She might actually have to talk to real people
.

The other guy introduced himself as Paul, but we were so not interested. He was older and beardy and not Duncan. He went on about safety and making sure we listened carefully to our instructors and he told us not to go wandering off into the woods on our own.

Cass put her hand up to ask a question. ‘Why
shouldn’t we go into the woods on our own? Is there some mad axe-man out there or something?’

Paul and Jess exchanged looks which obviously meant
This one’s trouble
.

Danni nudged Tara and then mouthed the word
pathetic
in Cass’s direction. Cass none-too-subtly stuck up her middle finger at Danni.

‘No, there’s no mad axe-man … that we know of anyway.’ And he laughed a stupid horror-movie laugh. We stared at him until he stopped. ‘No, but seriously, it can be dangerous out here. This area is riddled with caves and potholes, as you’ll be finding out for yourselves tomorrow, courtesy of Mr Fletcher here.’ He gestured towards Duncan before carrying on. ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you could easily find yourself falling down a hole and breaking a leg. Or a neck. And with all this lovely weather we’ve been having, the rivers are in full flow, so no latenight fishing trips for you ladies, OK?’
This guy is a weirdo
. ‘And I won’t even mention the lions and tigers and bears.’
Yep, a proper weirdo.

Polly’s hand went up. ‘Are there really bears around here?’ she asked hesitantly. Everyone laughed and I felt bad for her. When would she learn that it’s
always
best to keep your mouth shut?

Paul tried his best not to smile. ‘No, there are no
bears. And no lions or tigers for that matter. There
are
supposed to be wildcats in this area, but I’ve never seen one. The most fearsome creatures round here are the midges, which will eat you alive if they get half a chance. Lucky for you lot, they’re only a problem in summer.’

‘Yeah, like Scotland even
has
a summer,’ I muttered to no one in particular.

And then the introductions were over and we lined up to hand in our phones and stuff to Daley. Tara tried to pretend she hadn’t brought her phone with her, but Daley just stood there waiting until Tara gave up and handed it over. She flounced away, going on about it being an infringement of her civil rights and what if there was some kind of emergency? She had a point. I felt kind of anxious that I wouldn’t be able to speak to Dad for six days. I’d always been able to ring him before, just to check things were OK.

Then came the part I’d been dreading: sorting out the sleeping arrangements. There were six cabins, each sleeping five girls. Everyone looked around, sizing each other up, ready for a free-for-all. I edged closer to Cass. Tara and Danni and Gemma and Sam looked ready to audition girls for the coveted (or not) fifth spot in what would no doubt be the cushiest cabin of the lot.

But Daley surprised us by taking a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘I’ve already allocated each of you to a cabin, so if you could go and stand with your cabinmates when I read out your name.’

‘AW, MISS?!’ The chorus included pretty much everyone. I was too horrified to speak. Tara was giving Daley
major
evils.

I felt nauseous as the names were read out. One by one, everyone went and stood together in their little groups, some looking happier than others. The witches had managed to wangle a cabin together, but their fearless leader was left out in the cold. And then there were five:

Tara. Polly. Rae. Cass. And me.

Hardly what you’d call a dream team, but I was relieved that Cass and I would be together. And although Tara was the last person I wanted to share a room with, I
did
find it funny that she’d been separated from her loyal followers.

Tara was NOT happy. She stormed right up to Daley and gave her some spiel about this being completely ridiculous. We’d always been able to choose our own rooms before, and she wasn’t with any of her friends. She gestured towards us and didn’t even bother to disguise her disdain. ‘But I barely know these people!’ Not strictly true. She was on the
swimming team with Cass, Polly was her new puppet, and I was … I don’t know … a little piece of history? The only one she genuinely didn’t know was Rae, but then no one really knew Rae.

Tara tried her best to convince Daley to let her swap cabins. She used some of her classic tricks: charm, logic, and a weird semi-flirtatious thing that works on all the teachers. When it was clear that Daley was having none of it, Tara tried for extreme petulance.

Daley cut her off. ‘Tara, is this really such a big deal? Can’t you bear to be separated from your entourage for a few nights? It might do you good to spend time with some different people for a change.’

I thought Tara was going to deck her. No one ever talked to her like that. Daley was fast becoming one of my very favourite people.