Viva Alice! (8 page)

Chapter Sixteen

A
lice and Grace hugged me until I stopped crying. That took a long time, and when they finally pulled away, I realised that I was very cold. I was in my bare feet, and I was wearing thin summer pyjamas. I couldn’t help thinking of my lovely warm fleecy onesie, which was folded up on my bed at home. I shivered.

Alice picked up the blanket from the table, and wrapped it around me.

‘There,’ she said. ‘That better?’

‘Thanks, Al,’ I said. I was afraid if I said any more, I was going to burst into tears again.

I sat on the swinging couch and looked around. Even though the balcony was big, the only furniture was the swinging couch, and the small glass table.

Why couldn’t there have been a huge comfy bed, piled high with soft blankets?

Or a wardrobe full of warm fleeces and hoodies?

Or a vending machine serving hot chocolate and packets of crisps?

Or a telephone for emergencies?

‘This is all my fault,’ said Alice. ‘I was the one who came out here to look at the stupid sea.’

‘But I was the one who suggested taking the picture,’ I said.

‘And I should have propped the door open,’ said Grace. ‘I knew it couldn’t be opened from the outside.’

‘It doesn’t matter whose fault it is anyway,’ said Alice. ‘We’re stuck, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

As she said the last words, there was a sudden
gust of wind, and she shivered. She and Grace were both wearing light pyjamas like mine. Lucky Alice hadn’t got around to taking her socks off, but, like me, Grace was barefoot.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Come over here. No point in anyone freezing to death.’

Alice and Grace came over and sat beside me, and we wrapped the blanket around the three of us. For a minute, no one said anything. It would have been lovely sitting there, looking out at the beautiful sea, with my two friends beside me – if only the balcony door wasn’t locked, and if Lorna and Eddie and Gavin were downstairs, and if, when we got tired all we had to do was go inside to our warm and cosy beds.

‘We’re going to be in soooo much trouble when Gav gets back,’ said Grace. ‘When he finds the whole house locked up, and Mum and Dad gone, and the three of us frozen nearly to death out here, he’s going to figure out what happened.’

‘Maybe he won’t tell,’ said Alice. ‘He doesn’t seem the sneaky type.’

‘He’s
not
the sneaky type,’ said Grace. ‘He’s really cool most of the time – but he takes his role as big brother very seriously. He’ll tell on us, I know he will. Mum and Dad are going to go crazy when they hear that we pretended to them that Gav was here, and pretended to Gav that they were here. I’m going to be grounded for days.’

‘Lucky you,’ I sighed. ‘If my mum and dad find out about this, I’ll be grounded for months – or maybe forever.’

‘I don’t care about being grounded,’ said Alice. ‘No one ever died from being grounded. I just hope we don’t freeze, or starve to death. Or we could die of thirst. Anyone know how long a human can survive without water?’

Even though I was scared, I had to laugh. Trust Alice to be so dramatic.

‘It’s not going to go that far,’ said Grace. ‘Robyn and her dad are playing golf at ten, and
they’re dropping Gav back before their game. That means he should be here around nine. That’s not so bad, is it? None of us will have starved to death by then.’

Unusually for her, Alice didn’t say anything. I couldn’t speak either. I huddled closer to my friends, and tried not to cry.

Usually, when Grace and Alice and I are together, we talk a lot. There never seems to be enough time to say all the things we want to say. Now though, when we had all the time in the world, we were silent.

I stared at the sky. Maybe if I saw a shooting star, it would be sign that everything was going to be OK. But I stared until my eyes were tired, and all the stars stayed in the same place, twinkling away madly, like they didn’t care.

I thought about movies where groups of friends are trapped on a desert island, or in a
cave high in the mountains. In those films, the friends always pass the time by saying deep, thoughtful stuff, like how much they love each other.

I couldn’t think any deep thoughts though. All I could think about was how cold my toes were, and how hungry we were going to be if we couldn’t get any breakfast, and what was going to happen when one of us wanted to go to the toilet.

This could get totally gross.

Chapter Seventeen

‘A
bout those secrets,’ said Alice after a while.

‘You can stop right now, Al,’ I said. ‘Things are bad enough already. There’s no way I’m going to let you bully me into telling you more secret stuff.’

‘Megan’s right,’ said Grace. ‘That secrets game is stupid, and I’m not playing it any more.’

‘It isn’t a game this time,’ said Alice. ‘You two don’t have to tell secrets if you don’t want to.’

‘We don’t want to,’ I said quickly. ‘Game over.’

‘But there’s another secret I didn’t tell you before,’ said Alice. ‘And I feel kind of bad about that.’

‘So tell,’ said Grace. ‘It’s not like Megan and I are going anywhere any time soon. We’ve got all the time in the world.’

‘OK,’ said Alice slowly. ‘It’s about Melissa.’

‘Oh,’ said Grace. (Grace used to be friends with Melissa, a long time ago, before she got sense.)

‘What about Melissa?’ I asked.

‘The thing I want to tell you is that I met her last week,’ said Alice.

‘But that’s not a secret,’ I said. ‘I was there with you, remember? Melissa tried to bully me as usual.’

‘No,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t mean that time. I met her again, the day after that.’

‘And?’ asked Grace. ‘Why is that such a big deal? Melissa’s always showing up. She comes home from boarding school every chance she gets.’

‘We talked for ages,’ said Alice. ‘And Melissa was really upset ‘

‘Oh, dear!’ I said sarcastically. ‘Was she sad
because I wasn’t there for her to pick on? That must have been awful for the poor girl.’

‘I’m being serious, Megan,’ said Alice. ‘Melissa was
really, really
upset. She’s very unhappy at boarding school.’

‘We knew that,’ I said. ‘She told us ages ago, remember. But what’s all this about, Alice? It sounds like you care – except that’s totally impossible. How could you care about someone who’s such a total bully?’

‘Things have got worse since we last talked to her about her boarding school,’ said Alice, ignoring my question. ‘Melissa says she hasn’t got a single friend there. She says she cries herself to sleep every night. She says she hates every minute she spends there.’

Normally, I’d have been sympathetic. I know what it’s like to be sad and lonely. But it’s hard to feel sorry for someone when their life’s mission is making
your
life a misery.

‘So why doesn’t she just change schools?’ asked Grace. ‘Wouldn’t that fix things for her?’

‘Melissa is afraid to tell her parents how unhappy she is,’ said Alice. ‘Her parents paid tons of money for that boarding school, and she doesn’t want to disappoint them by telling them how much she hates it there.’

‘That’s kind of a problem,’ said Grace.

‘And there’s more,’ said Alice. ‘Melissa’s parents don’t like our school very much. Her big sister made all these weird friends and went a bit crazy while she was there, so––’

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Hold it right there. What are you saying? Do you mean Melissa wants to come to
our
school?’

‘Of course,’ said Alice. ‘Where else would she go?’

A boarding school on Mars sounded good to me, but that was probably a bit cruel, so I didn’t say it.

‘I don’t get why this whole thing about Melissa is a secret,’ said Grace. ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?

‘Well,’ said Alice. ‘I didn’t say anything,
because I’ve been trying to work stuff out in my head. I’ve been thinking – maybe we should help Melissa.’

‘How?’ asked Grace.

‘Well, we could go to her house and sort of casually meet her parents. We could talk about all the good stuff we do at our school, and how good it is for developing our personalities as well as our academic achievements.’

Grace giggled. ‘You mean all that garbage the principal goes on about at assembly?’

‘Yeah,’ said Alice. ‘That kind of stuff. And then Melissa’s parents would realise that it wasn’t the school’s fault that her sister went crazy. And then …’

‘And then what?’ I asked.

‘And then, because we’re there with her, Melissa will be brave enough to tell her parents how unhappy she is at boarding school, and they’ll let her leave. I
know
it’ll work. What do you think?’

Grace didn’t answer. I sat there as all kinds of
emotions fought it out in my brain. I remembered what it was like when I was in sixth class, after Alice had moved to Dublin with her mum. Melissa picked on me nearly every day while Alice was gone. Every day she found something new to mock me for. Every morning I woke up feeling scared and lonely. Every morning I wanted to pull the covers up over my head, and hide from the world. I was always afraid of meeting Melissa – always afraid of the mean things she was going to say to me. It was the worst time of my life.

‘So,’ said Alice again. ‘What do you think?’

Suddenly I realised I was really, really mad.

‘I don’t get you, Alice O’Rourke,’ I said. ‘I thought you were supposed to be my friend.’

‘I
am
your friend,’ she said.

‘No, you’re not,’ I said as I wriggled free of the blanket and stood up to face her. ‘You’re totally not my friend. You know how Melissa hates me. You know how she picks on me every time we meet. If she comes to our school, I’ll
have to see her every single day.’

‘Meg,’ said Alice, reaching out to hold my hand.

I pulled away. ‘No!’ I said. ‘Why would you want to help the girl I hate most in the whole world? Why would you want
me
to help her?’

‘But––’ said Alice.

I didn’t let her finish. ‘If Melissa comes back, she’s going to ruin my life all over again,’ I said. ‘And this time it’ll be totally your fault. Knowing my luck, she’ll be put into my class, and you and Grace and Louise will be off having fun together, and I’ll be just sitting there, waiting for Melissa to think up more mean stuff to say to me. I’ve got friends in my class now, friends who’ve never met Melissa, friends who actually think I’m kind of cool. As soon as Melissa shows up and starts saying mean stuff, they’re all going to hate me. I might as well get the word “loser” tattooed on my forehead. Thanks a lot – best friend.’

I stopped as tears came to my eyes, making
Alice look all blurry and weird. I knew I’d been shouting, but I didn’t care. I wanted to run inside, and throw myself on my bed and have a proper cry. But I couldn’t do that. I was trapped and there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

I bit my tongue and tried to hold back the tears.

‘Can I say something?’ asked Grace.

Neither Alice nor I replied, so Grace spoke anyway.

‘You both know I used to hang out with Melissa before,’ she said. ‘But we were never friends – not really. Mostly I was afraid of her.’

‘I can see why,’ I said. ‘She’s totally scary.’

‘But then,’ continued Grace. ‘When I was in sixth class, I started to play hockey and I made lots of new friends. I started to feel more confident, and then I realised that I never should have been afraid of Melissa. I know she says bad stuff, and she picks on people––’

‘Like me!’ I said.

‘But she’s not tough, not really,’ said Grace. ‘Hidden underneath all her bullying is a really sad person. In the end, I mostly feel sorry for her.’

‘What about feeling sorry for me?’ I said angrily. ‘I’m the victim here, remember? It’s OK for you two to be all nice and forgiving, but I’m the one Melissa calls names and mocks and picks on.’

Alice got up and hugged me. I wanted to push her away, but something stopped me. Alice is a good hugger.

‘Hey, Meg,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry you’re so upset. I know Melissa has been mean to you. I know you used to be a bit afraid of her, but you’re older now, and braver. You’re smart and funny and you’ve got heaps of friends. You’re ten times better than she could ever be.’

It was nice hearing my friend say such nice things, but I couldn’t answer her.

‘What could Melissa ever say that would really, really hurt you?’ continued Alice.

‘Lots,’ I said. ‘She’s had years of practice. Once she called me a hippy loser in front of my mum, and Mum went on about it for weeks and weeks. Another time the teacher was reading a story about a crazy family, and Melissa said the family sounded exactly like mine, and everyone laughed – even the nice kids.’

Grace put her head down. ‘I remember that day,’ she said. ‘I laughed. I’m really sorry, Megan. I just wanted Melissa to like me. I never stopped to think about how you must have felt. I really didn’t stop to think at all.’

‘That’s OK, Grace,’ I said. ‘It was a long time ago. You’ve been really nice to me since then. Melissa hasn’t changed though. She was mean to me in primary school, and she’s still mean to me now. That’s never going to change.’

‘If she does come to our school, she probably won’t try anything,’ said Alice. ‘But if she does, she won’t get away with it. She’ll have to deal with me and Grace and Louise and Kellie.’

I didn’t answer.

Part of me wanted to forget all the mean things Melissa had done to me.

Part of me wanted to be the bigger person.

Part of me wanted to say –
yeah, Al, you’re right. I’m being stupid. Melissa can’t hurt me any more. She’s unhappy, and we should try to help her.

But how could I say that?

Just thinking about Melissa made me feel all tense and nervous inside. Thinking about Melissa made me feel like a scared little kid.

Alice slowly let me go. ‘Just think about it for a while, Meg,’ she said. ‘I’d like to help Melissa, but if you don’t want me to, then I won’t. In the end, you can be the one who decides.’

‘I need to think about that,’ I said.

‘Sure,’ said Alice. ‘Take your time. We’ve got all night.’

Then we sat down, and the three of us huddled together under our blanket and waited for the night to be over.