White Lies

“Couldn’t wait to get back eh? Missed the old place that much?” Beachball asked, grinning at Tyler, whose reply was another lazy eye-roll. Obviously a standard move. “And who do we have here?” He peered at me for a second, before recognition dawned. “Ah! You must be Abigail! Hello! How was your journey?”

“Yeah, fine thanks.” I was still trying to catch my breath, and made an attempt to cover up the catch in my breathing with a totally unconvincing yawn.

“Excellent!” He grinned. “Well, welcome to the boarding house, Abigail. I’m sure you’ll be very happy here. We’re all the quintessential big happy family. Isn’t that right, Tyler?”

I was expecting yet another eye-roll, but something sad flashed across Tyler’s eyes, just for a second, before he murmured something non-committal in response. Beachball clapped him on the back and took a dig at “the eloquence of youth.”

“Mum and Dad not with you?” he asked, raising himself up on the balls of his feet to look over my shoulder, as if maybe they were standing behind me and were just incredibly small.

“Oh, no. Mum had to rush back,” I told him. “She flies out early tomorrow morning. And Dad’s already out of the country.”

“Ah, now, that sounds very exotic! What is it your parents do? Something much more exciting than teaching by the sound of it!”

I felt a painful tug in my stomach, and there was a split-second delay before I answered. “They’re in the army. Dad’s on deployment in Afghanistan, on his third tour now. Mum’s heading over there for the first time tomorrow.”

“Ah, now, well then.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable, his face glowing even more redly. There was something we had in common, at least. “My word. Not exotic at all. That must be extremely difficult for you, Abigail, having both parents in such… Well, yes, my word…”

There was an awkward pause. I thought it was a bit odd that he hadn’t already known. But with so many kids to look after, I supposed it must have been hard to keep track of everyone.

“And there I was,” he eventually continued, “thinking all our brave young men and women were either home or on their way, not still being shipped out. It just goes to show.”

Everyone always thought that now. That it was all over and done with. That we’d ‘won’. “Most of them are,” I told him. “Dad’s out there working with their police force, and Mum’ll be working with the local army – making sure they’re ready – that they don’t need anyone else. Kind of so that everyone else can come home.”

“Well well…that’s… My goodness. How commendable.”

He looked flustered, and I felt awkward, but help arrived in the form of a crackle from the intercom. Beachball sprang back into cheery mode – looking grateful for the interruption.

“Aha! Let’s see who else is keen to get back!” He rubbed his hands together. “Tyler, perhaps you could show Abigail around? We’ve put her in Scarlett’s dorm. You’ll love our Miss Murphy,” he told me with a wink. “She’s one of the most popular girls in the school; there’s no one here who knows better how hard it can be when you first start boarding, no matter what age you are. She’ll help you find your feet in no time.”

A flash of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on danced across Tyler’s eyes this time, somehow making me feel more nervous than ever as Beachball bounced off to buzz the door open.

“Come on then,” he said with a small smile that didn’t quite touch those eyes, before striding off down the corridor towards another set of stairs. I grabbed my case, tried to square my shoulders a little, and followed.

He bounded up three flights before finally stopping beside a door on the top corridor, waiting for me to catch up. It took a while. I tried to console myself with the fact that after a few weeks of this, combined with the walk up that hill to the school every day, I’d be fitter than ever. Not that that would be particularly difficult.

“What?” I panted, when I finally made it. “Never seen a girl with asthma before?” I meant it as a joke, but judging by the look on his face it’d come out wrong. “Don’t they have lifts?” I blundered on. “I mean, with everyone having cases and stuff?”

He shook his head. “No lifts. This building is approximately a million years old.”

“Yeah, but…aren’t there laws, or something?” I leant over slightly, feeling my breath start to settle. “What if you’re disabled?”

He shrugged. “You sleep downstairs.”

He pushed the door open, and then looked back at me. “Are you?” he said.

“Am I what?”

“Disabled?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

“I just meant, you know, what if.”

“Ah.”

He held the door open, and I shimmied past, face flaming from a mix of exertion and embarrassment. And I found myself in the pinkest room I’d ever seen. I don’t know whether it was the tension of the journey, or the awkwardness of the conversation, or what, but after taking a quick look around I burst out laughing, and once I’d started I couldn’t stop. Initially, Tyler looked at me like I was insane; but when I finally managed to blurt out, “God, my eyes!” he cracked a smile, and eventually started to laugh along with me.

“Got any shades in there?” he asked, nodding towards my case.

I felt some of the tension start to leave my shoulders. Now his eyes were smiling. But he still looked slightly awkward, leaning in the doorway, like his feet were trapped behind some kind of imaginary line.

“Somewhere,” I answered. And then, because the silence that followed went on just that little bit too long, as well as because I was suddenly genuinely curious, I asked, “So…are boys not allowed in the girls’ dorms or something?”

He laughed again, and as he uncrossed his arms and stepped inside I thought maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been feeling tense.

“We’re allowed,” he said, flinging his arms up and giving a little twirl that set me off giggling again. It was a nerves thing. So embarrassing. He nodded across to the only unmade bed of the four – the one directly beneath the window, and I hauled my case over and collapsed onto it. Between the freaky bird and the stair-a-thon I already felt like I needed a couple of hours to recover. And apparently, it showed.

“Need some time to settle in before the grand tour?” he asked.

I glanced around the room again, trying to adjust to the pinkness. Seeing the small bedside table and the individual desk next to it, it hit me suddenly: a stark, visual reminder that I wouldn’t be going home tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or any night for a good few weeks yet. And it really shouldn’t have mattered, because without Mum, Dad or Beth, home was just an empty shell anyway. But still…it got to me. I didn’t want Tyler to see that. I was fifteen, not five – I shouldn’t have been feeling homesick the second I’d walked through the door. Tyler was used to it. They all would be. I’d stick out like a sore thumb if they knew.

“Yeah, I think maybe I’ll get unpacked,” I told him. “Can I come and find you in a bit?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “I’ll probably be down in the common room. It’s just off reception.”

“Thanks.” I smiled up at him. He wasn’t the bag-carrying gentlemanly sort like his dad, but he’d been kind, and friendly, and I was glad he’d been there. He stopped at the door for a second before turning to look back at me.

“About Scarlett,” he said, slowly. Carefully. “She’s…”

And I waited, but the rest of his sentence never came.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “I’ll catch you later.”

“OK…” I said, to no one in particular as the door swung shut behind him. “So, that was weird…”

After his footsteps had faded down the corridor, I switched over into snoop mode. The hot pink bed linen must’ve been school issue, because a fresh set sat, gently glowing, at the end of my bed. The curtains and lampshades were the same shocking hue, and two of the three other beds were heaped high with even more violently pink cushions – while the third boasted an enormous, fluffy stuffed pig. It seemed I was well and truly in girly girls’ territory. It wasn’t really my style; but in a way it was kind of a relief, because it was hard to feel threatened by the sort of girl who’d go to bed with a cuddly pig. I’d come up against my fair share of Mean Girls over the years – who hadn’t – but I was pretty sure none of them had been into soft toys.

The wall above each of the other beds was plastered with photos of smiling, laughing teens, and on two of the bedside tables there were framed photos of ridiculously good-looking guys, one throwing a smouldering smile at the camera, and one with his arm around a stunning redhead. The third boasted a tattered photo of what looked to be an ancient Alsatian, and it made me smile.

I’d only brought one photo with me – one real one anyway, there were plenty on my phone – but I wasn’t ready to display it just yet. Pulling my battered, dog-eared novel out of my case, I opened it to where the photo marked my place, and felt my heart attempt both a leap and a nosedive at the same time. I closed it again gently, and laid the book on the small bedside table.

I got on with making my bed up and unpacking, before I could start thinking about things and getting upset, convincing myself that it’d be good to look ‘settled’ by the time the others got here. I hung my school clothes – the exact same unimaginative navy blue and white as all the others I’d been through, just with a slightly different crest on the sweatshirt – in the narrow wardrobe. My own clothes, mostly oversized jeans and hoodies, got crammed in around them. I stacked my new stationery on my desk and filled the bedside table with more well-thumbed paperbacks and my trusty Kindle.

The wide, inviting drawer under the bed, the only one with a key sitting pretty in the lock, cried out for my stash. I chewed on a thumbnail as I considered it. I could just throw it all out – dump the lot in one of the big Biffa bins that would inevitably be sitting out back somewhere. I could leave it all behind me once and for all – make this fresh start real. Or, I could just hold on to it for a bit, let it help me through the first few days and then ditch it when I was settled. It wasn’t like I was going to use it, after all. It just helped, knowing it was there. I listened carefully for footsteps out in the corridor, then pulled the two concealed carrier bags from my case and shoved them inside. I slammed the drawer on them and flicked the lock, slipping the key into my pocket before I could change my mind.

And that was me pretty much done. I started to feel a tightness in my chest as I looked at my little corner of the dorm, that familiar early warning of anxiety on the horizon. The walls started to slowly press in around me, and it didn’t feel as if there was enough air in the room. My fingers found the bracelet again, worrying at the tiny knots so hard I was afraid they’d all unravel.

Not losing it already are you, Abs? Beth’s voice was always there in the back of my mind. The best friend, the best big sister a girl could have. I knew it sounded corny, but so what, it was true – she was the one person who’d always been there for me, no matter how many times we upped and moved with Mum and Dad’s ever-changing deployments. The only constant. It had been difficult, almost impossible half the time, to make friends and hang on to them, but I’d lucked out because I had my best friend there with me all the time. Except for now, of course. I was here, and she was off settling in at uni, and nothing was ever going to be quite the same again.

Quit overthinking it, Doofus. We’ll talk online. And the holidays’ll be here before you know it.

She’d told me so many times. It was burned into my brain, but still it was hard to hold on to. I’d be OK for a bit, then I’d feel myself slipping again.

You’re not on your own.

Trying not to look at the walls as they pressed in towards me, I leant over to pull the curtains back from the window, fumbling with a fiddly, ancient-looking screw-fitting before I could finally fling the sash up high enough to let in the late summer air. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with it, as a gentle breeze skimmed across my skin.

“You’ve always got to look for the positives,” Dad had kept telling me. All summer long. And I got that, I really did. It was just that sometimes the positives were really, really good at hiding.

A shriek from outside overrode my overthinking, and I stuck my head out of the window to see what was going on. The dorm faced out directly onto the courtyard, and I could see cars lining up outside the gate now – disgorging laughing kids with enormous bags. No one looked up at the new girl in the window; everyone was busy looking for their friends at ground level. I got to be invisible, anonymous, for just a little while longer.

A brightness in the trees to the left caught my eye: a flash of midnight blue, followed by a fierce flare of red in the sunlight. I stuck my head out further, risking discovery to peer across at the branches swaying in the late-afternoon breeze. And there he was again. “How’s your wife, Mr Magpie?” I only whispered it this time in case anyone did look up and think I was insane. Do you even have to say it again if it’s the same one? If it even was the same one. He’d need a name if he was going to keep showing up. I watched as he flicked his head from side to side, as if he was telling me ‘no’ – no what? No I don’t have to say it again? No he’s not the same one? Shouldn’t he, perhaps, have been nodding ‘yes’, as in ‘yes, Abby, you’re losing your mind, talking to a bird’?

His eyes locked on to mine as I thought it – the only soul out there who saw me. They flashed a deep, disturbing shade of red – a trick of the sunlight, no doubt, and presumably the flare I’d initially seen. I tried to hold his gaze. It felt like a question of pride. My eyes started to burn, and he emerged the clear winner as I closed them to clear the bright, piercing after-image of his own.

When I looked again, he was gone.

I told myself it could have been worse – it could have been a raven. That would have been way more creepy. The stuff of powerful poems and brooding teen dramas and meaningful nightmares.

Trust me to end up with a magpie. I never quite got it right.

Chapter Four

With nothing left to unpack, I had no reason to hang around in the dorm. Except that with people now starting to show up and swarm around, I suddenly really didn’t want to do the whole New Girl thing. That first bit, where everyone stares at you like you’re a new exhibit at the zoo and no one’s worked out what category of animal you are just yet; where you have to smile so hard to prove to everyone you’re not a predator that your face burns; at the same time as not letting anyone think you’re prey either. That bit doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times you go through it.

I started to wish I’d gone back down with Tyler. At least then I would’ve had someone there, to maybe make the introductions and take the pressure off. And everything was different this time. I wouldn’t get to go home at three o’clock. I wouldn’t get to argue with Mum over breakfast, and make up over dinner. I wouldn’t be able to con Beth into doing my homework for me. I wouldn’t be able to go home until Christmas.

My self-pity alarm went off in my head. I needed something to take my mind off it, and fast. It never mattered what you thought about, so long as you just didn’t think about the thing that hurt. No way could I go down there with red-rimmed eyes – that would put me smack bang into the ‘prey’ category with a huge target painted right on my back.

In the end I settled on trying to think of everything I knew about magpies. It didn’t take long, but it was kind of random enough to derail the bad thoughts. Magpies were bad luck if you saw them on their own – that was why you had to ask about their wife, because if you acted like there were two of them it was fine. Although I had no idea why no one ever asked about husbands.

They were supposed to like shiny things. They were territorial, I thought, although I realised I was basing this purely on a YouTube video I’d once seen of a girl on a bike getting attacked by one. It was hilarious. There was something else, too, something right at the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite untangle. Something to do with blood, and the devil. Beth would know – she’d gone through a pretty heavy-duty Catholic phase once.

Beth! I hadn’t even messaged her since I’d arrived. She’d be worried about me.

I grabbed my phone. She was online, of course. She was always online.

-hey B! whats that thing with magpies & the devil? Can u remember?

There was a slight pause, and then, ‘Beth is typing…’

I let out a slow breath as the familiarity of contact started to work its magic and calm me down. Everything might have changed but some things would always stay the same – right? I couldn’t work out if that made any sense or not, but I liked the thought of it either way.

-Hello, Beth. How are you? I’m fine. I made it to my new school safely. I’m settling in OK. You can stop worrying now…

I laughed, and rolled my eyes.

-sorry!! hi! hows u? all good here. the magpie thing though?

-Seriously? Why aren’t you making friends instead of asking me crazy weird questions?

-cos theres a magpie outside and im trying to think of the blood thing, what was it, do u know??

-Yes, of course I know. I read, Abs. Actual books, not your dodgy Fifty Shades nonsense *bites lip*

-whatever! i only read them to see what the fuss was about!

-That’s what they all say, Sis.

-yeah well at least i didnt watch the film *points finger*. anyway are u gonna tell me or not??

-Only because they wouldn’t let you in. And it depends, are you going to start properly spelling and punctuating your messages?

-yeah when i get old and fussy and annoying like you :p now spill.

-OK, crazy girl. Magpies supposedly didn’t sing when Jesus was crucified. They were the only birds that didn’t. Even those big old crows that everyone thinks are so spooky sang. Or cawed. Or whatever it is they do. But not the magpies. Some people say they carry a drop of the devil’s blood on their tongues. They’re cursed birds, Abs. Laden with darkness.

I got chills as I read. Maybe the bird outside my window could rival a raven yet.

-If you believe in that kind of thing, that is.

I fired back a LOL, feeling better as I remembered how Beth’s level of belief had taken a nosedive when a certain hot young novice priest had moved on and an octogenarian with gastric ‘issues’ had taken his place at the chapel on the base.

-i think he lives in this tree outside my window, I told her. he needs a name.

-OK. Call him Malthus. Now go and make friends, or I’ll tell Mum.

-malthus??

-Google it, Doofus. Now Go Make Friends!

-i dont like it, its too lispy.

-You are seriously weird, you know that, Abigail Gray?

-oh yeah, grey!

-What are you on about now?

-the black and white thing, u mix them u get grey – ill call him Grey.

-Magpies actually have a bluish tinge to their feathers, and green tails. So that doesn’t work, Doofus.

-yeah well i like it, anyway cant chat on here all day, gotta go make friends :p

I logged out before she could snark back at me and get the last word. And I felt much better. Less lost. More like the kind of person people might want to hang out with, rather than just sort of stare at. My phone buzzed, and I looked down to see a text.

Let me know how it goes, and say hi to Malthus for me xx

I smiled. I’d give her a call later tonight. She’d want to hear about Tyler for sure – she had an epic weakness for blond surfer types.

I lay back and sighed. My bed was pretty comfortable, but something was digging into my thigh. I pulled the small, golden key from my pocket and turned it over in my fingers. Its smooth warmth made me feel safe – in control. It was like running my fingertips over the bracelet, except in that one moment the key felt more solid – more real. I closed my eyes. I’d just lie here for a few more minutes. Enjoy the calm before the storm.

Chapter Five

Nothing made any sense when the bird woke me up. Because I couldn’t have been asleep. I’d heard the laughter and the shouts outside, the cars and the footsteps; but the sudden scrape of claws against glass had startled me upright and my head swam with the kind of confusion that only falling asleep when you didn’t mean to brings. When just for that one split second you don’t know where you are or what day or time it is. And there he was, perched as still as a statue, somehow calmly expanding to fill the entire open window.

I swore like a squaddie and threw myself sideways off the bed, trying to get well out of beak range, landing on the hardwood floor with a thump. I heard creaking doors and echoing shouts in the corridor outside, but I didn’t take my eyes off the bird, pushing myself further back towards the door, staying low. I had no idea why. Maybe I’d thought I’d be less of a target down there. Unfortunately, I was a pretty substantial target anywhere, as I proved when the door flew open and eager footsteps rushed in, tangled themselves up in my arms, and flew over me. The bird bolted. The owner of the footsteps cried out. And for some reason, probably because I had no idea what else to do, I giggled.

A short, skinny blonde who couldn’t have been more than fourteen peeled herself off the floor with, I think, more hurt in her eyes than anywhere else.

“Oh, God, I’m not – sorry,” I gabbled breathlessly, pushing myself to my feet and offering her a hand just that little bit too late. “I mean, I am sorry, obviously. I meant to say I’m not…I wasn’t…laughing at you. Sorry.”

She looked a bit like one of those cats you sometimes see in town. Wide-eyed and unsure whether to come over and rub against your leg or run like hell in the opposite direction.

“I sort of laugh when I’m nervous,” I explained. It didn’t seem to help. “I’m Abby.” I ploughed bravely on. “I’m new. Sorry.”

The silence stretched out for a couple more agonising seconds before she broke into a kind of puzzled smile; and I breathed an inner sigh of relief.

“Hi.” She waved, wincing a little and then holding her arm, and she looked so small, so tiny, that I worried I’d broken her. “I’m Lilly,” she said. “I’ve been here for ever. Why were you on the floor?”

I brushed some imaginary dust from my jeans, playing for time, and looked over at the emptiness of the open window.

“You didn’t see him?” I asked, wondering what came first in all the confusion: the opening door, the fleeing feathers, or the falling Lilly.

“See who?”

“There was a…never mind.” I didn’t think it would’ve helped. ‘There was a bird. It scared me. I’m clearly insane.’ “I’m really sorry. Epically bad timing. Way to make a first impression, right?”

She laughed with me this time, and went to pick up a bag I hadn’t even noticed her drop. It was tiny – maybe half the size of my case. She threw it onto the bed nearest mine and started flinging things out at random, chatting away to me over her shoulder. I sat back down on the bed, still trying to compose myself. It seemed to have been that kind of a day, so far.

“You’re Year Eleven, aren’t you?” She didn’t bother to wait for an answer. “Mrs S told us about you. Mrs Strickland I mean. You’ve met her, right? And Mr S?” She stopped for a second, and turned around to look right at me. “You haven’t just been sitting up here all on your own or anything, have you?”