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“And if it’ll cheer you up, we took one of the drama club brochures at the community centre,” Mam said. “There’s some small costs involved, but it’s not so bad, so we think we can swing it.” She winked at me. “And the odd Pilates class.”
I eagerly took the leaflet from her then my face fell. “Are you sure we can afford this?”
“Yes,” Mam said firmly. “You need something you love to do to help you settle here.”
“You might make some friends,” Dad said, patting my hand.
I lay back on the sofa. Maybe a bit of normality would do me good, but there had to be a way for me to get a job to pay for the drama club myself. I knew my parents were trying to cheer me up, but with everything else going on, maybe I needed less of a chance to fall asleep unattended instead.
* * *
My parents treatedme as though I were made of glass after my little “fainting” incident, but they had no qualms about sending me back to school. As soon as I stepped through the doors, I felt it—hate and anger and fear. Whatever caused the divide had grown worse since the bonfire.
I spotted Dorian’s friend, Victor, with a group of others just as Victor shoved a townie into the lockers so hard the metal bent. Things were getting out of hand.
“Stop!” I hurried over. “What are you doing?”
“Keep out of it,” Victor said, his gaze intense on the boy he had pushed. The boy looked terrified, and that seemed to rile Victor up all the more.
“Victor,” I said sharply.
He looked at me then, an odd glint in his eyes. “Keep. Out of it.”
For the first time, I realised Victor was mildly terrifying, but I hated bullies enough to refuse to let him cow me. “No,” I said just as firmly.
He looked faintly surprised. The boy took his chance to run.
“Now look what you did,” Victor said. “I’ll have to hunt him down again.”
A ripple of laughter spread through his group of friends.
“Stop bullying people,” I snapped. “He didn’t do anything to you.”
“Are you serious?” Victor said. “All his crowd have ever done is talk shit about us, blaming us for everything. Halloween was the last bloody straw. Because of those idiots, we’re all under… you know what? Never mind.”
“No, tell me,” I said. “What’s going on?”
He lifted his shoulder into a shrug. “Go hang around with your townie buddies.”
He turned and walked away. The others shot me scornful glances before following him. If Victor’s friends had pulled the prank on Halloween, then why was he so mad at the townies?
I decided it wasn’t worth getting into the mind of somebody like Victor and went to my locker instead. Chloe and Emma were holding court a few lockers away, talking loudly about Halloween to anyone who’d listen.
“I felt threatened,” Emma said. “Didn’t you, Margo?”
I looked over. “Sorry, what?”
“When we used the bathroom. Halloween, remember? That man basically chased us out of the house like we were criminals.”
Was she serious? “We’d literally just stolen something from their house.”
She rolled her eyes. “The spirit board they conveniently left out for us. All part of the prank.” She exchanged a glance with Chloe. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”
But the spirit board had been pretty well hidden up on top of a high wardrobe.
“They’re just animals,” Adam said hotly. “We gave them a chance, and they proved us right.”
“We’ll have to get them back,” one of the other boys said.
