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…Auntie saying security’s been enhanced re hate mail and yesterday’s dead slug incident. I don’t understand why all this is happening to me. I’ve always been 100% faithful…
…Fail, fail, fail. I’m going to fail. Haven’t revised a single thing since last year. Open the books, take nothing in. I’m doomed and I don’t care…
…Op Strike 1st. That’s when life went wrong. I used to feel guilty about it. Now I feel nothing…
…Another B-. U take away the brains, what is left? NOTHING. Why couldn’t I have been pretty instead? Only thing this shallow cesspit of a world cares abt. The actual insane power it gives u - see Weirdo’s escalation to ruling the school since sleeping around. Only 3 girls in school, easy to see my place is bottom-LAST. Caught Wells ranking us out of 10, like his scrawny rat face is anything to desire. Li 9, weirdo 7.5, me “do minus numbers count hahaha would rather fuck a boiling kettle.” I wish I looked normal…
I shut the diary. No. This is way, way too personal, and a worse person than me would use it for more nefarious purposes than getting info on Antiro. I’d always considered Arabella strong. Infallible. A powerhouse with the same intimidating, fixed stare as her aunt. Pretty, even — a quality I’d imagined she’d be far too sensible to be obsessed with. But here she comes across as small, insecure, checked out, lonely. I regret reading a single passage. It ruins every thought I’ve ever had about her, because to me she represented a kind of hope for freedom, that it might not be a right of passage for every girl to be a jumbled bag of righteous anger and self-loathing angled inward in response to this sham world. Never underestimate a teenage girl’s belief in herself as the greatest failure of all time.
If not even Arabella can escape the female propensity for cruelty and harm against herself when low, then who can? And is it worse, I wonder, than being male, and instead not pointing the cruelty inward but bringing harm to others?
I gaze at The Daily Toot clipping, realizing Arabella’s scribbled something on it. It’s another photo of The Daily Toot’s endless roster of coyly smiling, large-breasted bikini models, but parts of her body have been circled with things like “my hips aren’t like this,” “i have no curves,” “my teeth are uneven,” “my eyebrows are too bushy,” “i just want a flat toned stomach, no more BELLY,” “how does she have no hair literally anywhere…” For Arabella’s own sake, I just wish I could rip all this toxic shit up because frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bikini model had a similar negative internal monologue about her own perceived inadequacies.
As I slip Arabella’s diary back into her bag, burying it beneath waterproofs and returning the bag to its original position against the safe, I vow to be kinder to Arabella for the rest of the term. Sometimes you can’t tell what a person’s going through until their own words accost you from the page.
I sleep early that night, long before the others arrive back from the restaurant, and in my dreams, I see glimpses of dark, stormy water.
* * *
“We did it,” Rory whispers gleefully to me at breakfast, nabbing a pastry and ripping it apart.
I’m snapped out of my thoughts on Arabella. “Did what?”
“The Hodgson footage,” Rory says. “It’s all online. We finally got a connection at the restaurant. Boy, is he gonna get taken down a peg or ten.”
I blink, still distracted. “Hodgson?”
“Yes.” He cocks his head, his silver eyes growing concerned. “Our maths teacher? The footage we took? We were coming here to share it?” After a pause where I remain silent, he adds, “Belly 2.0?”
My stomach gives a sickly leap. I know he wants to fan heat onto those who’ve wronged us, but ever since reading Arabella’s diary, I’m starting to think this method of public blasting is too much.
But there’s nothing I could have done to stop this in time, before my great epiphany, and I suppose Hodgson is unlikely to be circling models and pining for their shapely eyebrows. The man seems to take delight in having actual pinecones above his eyes.
Rory continues peering at me. “Are you okay?”
I never know how to answer this. “Just thinking about today,” I say, giving him a bland smile. “Baxter says I’m allowed out of my room, as long as I don’t shout conspiracy theories at people.”
“Stupid prick,” Rory growls. “Honestly, some idiots deserve the hellscape we’re trying to prevent from happening. Say the word and she’ll be next on our list.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
No women. That’s my rule, I’ve decided. No matter how wrong or stupid or naive they’re being, I’ll try my damnedest to love, cherish and support them. Supporting Baxter is a tough pill to swallow, but it’s better than dragging women down. If I can earn their trust, and their respect, instead of us all being pitted against each other, then maybe they’ll be easier to harden against Antiro. Who knows, maybe Baxter has a private diary in which she writes her greatest fears about Antiro’s takeover.
Seeing people through this frame has given me a new perspective, and a clearer way to develop empathy for those who’ve treated me abysmally in the past. But do I need to have empathy for political enemies and stupid pricks?
“Mercy,” I blurt, and Rory raises a soft blond eyebrow. “You said, last year, that Danny said…”
“Mercy isn’t a weakness. Yes. Why?”
“Do you still stand by it?”
“Not for fucking Hodgson,” Rory says, sounding outraged at the idea. “He’s been wanging off about Antiro all term. He’s in a position of power, a grown adult meant to be looking after us, who shoulddefinitelyknow better. If half his lessons are sermons on Antiro, I don’t know what he’s expecting come prelims when it’ll emerge that most of us have absolutely fucked them.”
There are still months left to make amends to the women forced to be in my life. And I can be amenable — but can everyone else? Fuck it. They already call me Weirdo. May as well live up to the nickname by having a complete personality flip.
But Rory’s staring at me hard, trying to figure me out. “Why are you after mercy? Or are you the one granting it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I hesitate. “I just think… we should lay off Arabella. And Li, for that matter.” Even though she’s a complete cow and doesn’t deserve it, but oh well. I manage to keep these words locked off in my head instead of venting them aloud, which I suppose is some kind of feminist progress.
