Once it stopped she couldn’t get off straight away; instead she clung to the seat and then great, racking sobs overtook her. Still crying, she put a hand up to her cheek, wiped away some of whatever they had thrown at her. It was in her hair too; she felt fear and nausea rising up in her again.
Then she heard a sound. Someone was there and she flinched, cowering with fright, desperately trying to get off the roundabout. She couldn’t be on it again with thempushing her, she’d be so sick, but when she stood, her legs wouldn’t walk in a straight line and she stumbled about, eventually falling off it, crying some more, shoutingno, noand then she heard a voice.
‘Lara, it’s me.’
Lara backed away, losing her balance, and she hit her ankle on the edge of the equipment. She cried out, then she saw Mia in the dark, just in front of her, old toilet paper hanging off her clothes.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Mia.
Lara said nothing.
‘I saw what they did to you. You look...’ Mia was staring at her. ‘They made a mess.’
‘What is this stuff?’ said Lara.
‘Fake blood. Don’t worry.’ Mia pulled off some of the toilet roll from her costume, handed it to Lara.
‘Thanks,’ sniffed Lara, but the paper was ragged so it only cleaned up part of one leg and so she stopped. Mia took it from her and threw it in the bin.
‘They said I’d used dirty toilet paper,’ said Mia. Lara froze. ‘I hadn’t,’ said Mia quickly. ‘They were just saying that and holding their noses.’
Lara knew what they had been referring to – the smell that made you wrinkle your nose sometimes when Mia was around.
‘I’m going to find my mum,’ said Lara.
‘What about your sweets?’ asked Mia, looking quickly back at the strewn bag on the roundabout.
‘I don’t want them.’
She started to walk out of the park. Mia pulled her gaze from the sweets and followed after her. As they came onto the street, Lara saw her mother and Beth looking around anxiously.
Then Nancy turned and saw her daughter and let out a blood-curdling scream.
THIRTY-FOUR
Saturday 31 October
‘Jesus, are you hurt? What’s happened?’ cried Nancy in a panic as she ran over to her child, her baby, desperately trying to find the source of all the blood. It was horrific; it was all over her, blood running down her neck, her arms, her legs, smeared across her face. The shock was stopping Nancy from thinking straight; but she needed to find out where Lara was bleeding. On some numbed level, Nancy was faintly aware that Lara didn’t seem to be in any pain, but she couldn’t make sense of it all.
‘It’s fake, Mum,’ said Lara.
Nancy slowed, the information sinking in. ‘What?’
‘It’s fake blood.’
Fake blood? How has Lara got covered in fake blood?
‘Who did this to you?’ asked Beth.
Lara looked at Mia.
‘Her?’ said Beth.
‘No.’
‘It was Rosie, wasn’t it?’ said Nancy, her voice dangerously low.
‘They wore masks, so I wasn’t completely sure...’
