“You’ve never mentioned this before,” says Sally, pressing one tine of her fork into a baked bean. She doesn’t fancy eating anything, though it smells good and is glossier and better presented than any breakfast she’s ever cooked herself.
“From the minute she turned up at college, she decided she hated me. And she let me know it at every opportunity,” says Ree. “She’d take photos of all the girls, then crop me out of every single one. I’d get three-quarters of the way through a sentence and then she’d interrupt—like turn away and say something to someone else. Then she’d turn back to me and go, ‘Sorry, Ree, what were you saying?’ Oh, and she’d do the stupid eye-contact thing too: look at everyone else and be ever so engrossed and attentive, and no one would notice that she’d not looked in my direction once, despite being part of the same group as me for hours sometimes.”
“That’s bullying,” says Sally. “You should have told me.”
“Why? I told her instead,” says Ree. “I said, ‘I can see through every single bit of your crap’—and within hours of me saying thatvery publicly, Tess had no friends. Hasn’t had any since, either. She sits on her own every break, every lunchtime.”
“Everyone took your side?” Corinne asks.
“Yeah, but, like, not in a heartwarming or inspiring way.”
“What do you mean?” says Sally.
“The girls took my side for one reason only, same reason Tess targeted me as her social-ostracism victim in the first place. Unfortunately, I can’t say what that reason is without sounding like I love myself and think I’m the shit, so…” Ree shrugs.
“You’re prettier and cleverer,” says Tobes.
“Aw, cheers, bruv.” Ree leans over to try to give him a hug but fails because the table is too big. “No one in my year cares about clever, but…yeah, I’m better-looking and I’m more confident. Especially because, soon after moving to Swaffham Tilney, Tess’s looks just… I mean, this sounds nasty, but I’m just trying to be descriptive—somethingterriblehappened to her face. When she first arrived, she looked sort of okay-ish—”
“Like, maybe a seven,” says Tobes. “No, a six. But Ree’s right. Her face changed shape. It was the weirdest thing. And sometimes she stinks too. I’d say she’s no higher than a four now.”
Mark shoots a horrified look at Sally—Is this our son, rating humans out of ten based on their looks?—but, in her present mood, Sally is willing to let it pass. Champ’s safety has been threatened, thanks to Tess’s slanderous dishonesty, so forgive Sally for hoping the lying cow is soon further demoted to a two after her face takes on an even more suboptimal shape—maybe that of a giraffe, or a sewing machine. “Being Lesley Gavey’s daughter, with all that entails, would be enough to change the shape of anyone’s face,” she mutters.
“Once Tess was crying and I felt sorry for her, so I sidled over and asked her what was wrong,” Ree says. “She started yelling at me about how the oceans were going to die from being full of too much plastic, and I didn’t even care, and only she cared. After that, I thought, ‘Yeah, someone else can help you out next time you’re upset, weirdo.’”
“Show me Lesley’s Facebook page,” says Sally. “Unless…are you sure it’s not traceable to me if I look at the internet on your phone?”
Ree groans. Tobes covers his face with his hands.
Corinne picks up her phone and is about to hand it to Sally, when there’s a small beep. She reads a message, frowning, then closes her eyes for a second. “Shit.”
“What?” Panic rears up inside Sally. “Have the police found out we’re here?”
“No. Sal, relax. And eat something.” Corinne looks at her sternly. “You ate nothing last night. Wasting away isn’t going to help anything—and it’s also against the ethos of Champ, who, I’ve noticed, does a little dance of joy every time anyone puts food out for him.”
This is true. Sally knows Champ would want her to eat. Maybe a few beans and a bit of bacon. Is it okay for Corinne to be calling her “Sal” just because she’s heard Mark do so?
“But…are you sure it’s…?” She points to the phone.
“It’s nothing, really. Nothing to do with you or Champ. Just a headache for me.” Corinne mumbles something sneery, tapping away at the screen with her thumbs. “There, take that, you arse,” she tells the absent headache-creator. “Typically I have to deal with about fifteen a day at least—cretins sticking their oars in and messing up things that are working perfectly well.”
“Innit, though,” says Tobes. “School,” he tells a puzzled-looking Mark. “Teachers.”
Corinne finds Lesley Gavey’s Facebook page, then passes her phone to Sally, who is soon transfixed. Mark turns the conversation to the important plans he’s wanted to discuss since he woke up and what the next normal-life-recovering move ought to be. Soon he and Corinne hit a point of disagreement, but Sally hears none of it. She can’t take her eyes off what Lesley Gavey has chosen to post on social media. And her account goes back years. This is incredible. But wait…
Sally’s heart lurches. “Shukes,” she says. “She’s put up a photo of Shukes. Oh my God!”
Everyone stops talking.
“Is there any way of deleting a picture or post from someone else’s Facebook?” Sally asks Toby. Rage speeds through her system like an out-of-control train, unafraid of what it might crash into.
“The best you can do is report the account,” says Ree. “Why, what is it?”
“Tenth of August last year, she posted it—two days before she turned up crying,” says Sally. “Guess what the caption says?”
No one seems to want to guess. Eventually Mark says, “‘I like this house and might want to buy it. What does everyone think?’ Something like that?”
“Except without the ‘might,’” Sally tells him. “And much shorter. Just three words: ‘My new house.’ And there are sixteen comments—sixteen!—congratulating her, telling her it’s beautiful. The tenth of August, Mark. Last year. Shukes wasoursthen. He hadn’t even gone on the market.”
