There’s a long silence as Stew waits for me to ask if I can invite that person to Christmas, but I can’t say it. “That’s good,” says Stew, forgetting to mimic Dad’s voice as he tries to prompt me into remembering my line. “Do you want to bring someone back with you for the holidays?”
I turn away so I don’t have to look at Mrs Kellmore, who hasn’t taken her eyes off me since I stepped inside the booth. “No, it’ll just be me and Chrissie.”
Part of me waits for Stew to tell me I told you so, but Stew’s a real mate, and real mates never kick you when you’re down. “I’m sorry, Rich,” he says. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice breaking up as the questions force me to accept this horror film is really my life. “But I need to speak to Mum.”
“Okay, I’ll just get her.”
“No—” I try to tell him I’m not talking in code, that I really want to speak to my mum, but he’s already handed the phone to Beth, and when I hear her voice, I miss her so much, I have to bite my lip to keep the tears inside me.
“Rich, I’m so sorry,” Beth begins, and I realise she’s crying too. “Do you want us to come and get you?”
“No,” I say, realising I’m turning down a free ticket away from the front line. “Not until I speak to Mum.”
“You really want to talk to your mum?”
“Yes,” I tell her, hoping old Kellmore isn’t listening in. I risk breaking cover. “Can you call her?”
“Now?”
“Yes, it’s late. She should be at home.”
“Okay,” she says. “Do you want us to stay on the line?”
“No,” I say; even though Beth’s my best friend in the world, Chrissie’s my twin, and I can’t just give up on her.
“You sure?” Beth asks, her voice cracking even more.
“Yes,” I reply; you never know what twists a film can take.
“Okay, I love you.”
“Love you too.”
There’s a click, and the line goes silent, and I wait and I wait; the fear I’m cut off from headquarters and all alone makes my heart go into full-blown panic mode, then there’s another click, and I hear the hum of a group of people talking, clinking glass, laughter, and the upbeat tempo of jazz music. My parents are having a party. I’m going through hell, and they’re having a party!
“Rich?” It’s Mum. She sounds out of breath, like she’s been running. “I didn’t think we had a call planned.”
The disappointment she isn’t pleased to hear from me feels like another kick in the guts. “We didn’t.”
“You’re not in any more trouble, are you?” she asks, the music turning muffled.
I don’t believe her. I just got out of the hospital — I was expecting a “how are you, dear?” at the very least or “we were all so worried,” but no, all she cares about is whether I’ve got another detention under my belt. “No.”
“Good,” she says. “Because we’ve got some of your father’s clients round here, and he’s convinced they’re going to sign and—”
“Screw Dad’s clients!” I tell her in a fit of rage.
“Rich, if you’ve put your dad’s deal at risk—”
“And what about the risk Dad’s deal is putting me at?” I cry, losing it big time. “It was Chrissie who stole the mobile, and she’s turned everyone against me!”
Chapter 53
Now I’ve said it aloud, that it was Chrissie, there’s nothing I can do to stop the waterfall of tears, and I just stand there crying, angry and scared to the point it feels like I can’t go on. Nowhere is safe anymore — not even home.
“Rich,” she says after I’ve made a right idiot of myself crying like stupid kid. “I know you’ve had some trouble adjusting—”
“This isn’t about me adjusting!” I shout. I don’t know any other way to make her understand. “It’s Chrissie! Why won’t you listen to me?”
She goes quiet again, but even though she doesn’t say anything, I know she isn’t on my side, and it makes me even angrier. “Okay, Rich. I’m listening.”
I take a deep breath as I fight through the blinding tears in my head for the right words. “Mum, Chrissie’s gone crazy, and she’s—”
“Rich, honey…” I can tell by the way she talks to me, like I’m some retarded year seven, she doesn’t believe a word. “There is nothing wrong with your sister.”
“Yes, there is, and because of her, the whole school wants to kill me!”
“Stop exaggerating.”
“I’m not!” I tell her again. “She’s turned everyone against me and—”
“You beat up Robert Spencer.”
“That’s got NOTHING to do with it!”
“Hasn’t it?”
“NO!” I’m drowning. I’m reaching out to her, but she won’t take my hand.
“Well, it’s not easy when you’re in trouble all the time.”
“Since when have I ever given you any trouble before?”
I hear her take a deep breath. She’s tired of me already and wants to get back to her party. “I don’t know, Rich, but you’re certainly making up for it now.”
“That’s because Chrissie set me up—”
“You’re imagining things,” she tells me with even more force.
“No, Mum, I’m not. She’s doesn’t want me to have any friends and—”
This time she doesn’t even let me finish. “Rich, if you’re going to bring up that Jenny Metcalf incident—”
“What?” This time I’m the one who interrupts.
“Those reporters had no right to print it!” Mum yells back at me. “It was an accident!”
Once again, I feel like I’ve drifted off in a film and missed the main clue that explains everything. “Why would it be in the papers?”
Silence, as she realises she’s said too much.
“Mum, why was Jenny bullying Chrissie in the papers?”
Another long silence before she finally cracks.
“The silly girl broke her leg,” Mum tells me. “And her parents were trying to make something of it for the compensation. We settled out of court of course. After all, Chrissie never meant to push the girl down the stairs.”
OMG. Beth was right. Chrissie’s been crazy for years, and if she’d push Jenny Metcalf down a flight of stairs for being my friend when we were kids, what would she have done to Beth if we’d not been sent off to St. Bart’s?
“Chrissie had a few insecurity issues, but there’s nothing wrong with her now; she’s had therapy…”
She goes on to tell me what kind of therapy, but I don’t know what she’s saying because I’m seeing every clue I ever missed in a time sequence montage of terror!
“Now stop trying to blame your sister just because you won’t accept responsibility for what you did!”
“What?” I can’t believe Chrissie’s somehow managed to turn Mum against me too. “I haven’t done anything!”
“You’ve got a record for fighting as long as my arm!” she yells. “So what if she took a mobile without permission — deal with it!”
Chapter 54
Now I know why Chrissie tried to kill herself all those years ago, but whether it was guilt or to blackmail me so I’d forgive her if Mum and Dad had told me the truth like they should have, I don’t think I’ll ever know.
I kick out at the wall, making all the security monitors rattle. I still can’t believe Mum. I know Dad can be a real prick, but I always thought I could count on Mum, but now she’s been brainwashed by Dad and “his deal” that will “set us up for life”, so I guess it’s up to me to put an end to it.
Turning on all the cameras, I scan the monitors to search for Chrissie. It’s time to have it out with her. I don’t know what I’m going to say yet, but there’s nothing else I can do. I can’t go to one of the masters when the only evidence I have is security footage I should never have taken, which just proves she’s a thief too!
I have no choice. I can’t wait until the end
of term, not when Spencer’s planning another assault. This stops today, and systematically working my way through all the cameras, I find her in one of the downstairs classrooms, making out with Spencer!
I suck on my lips, taking angry deep breaths as I struggle to keep my cool. All these years I thought I was the actor and director, formulating scenes, creating illusions and making the audience believe I’m someone else. Only Chrissie’s far more talented than I am. She doesn’t need to rehearse, write scripts, and instruct her actors what to do. She’s managing a cast of hundreds real time, and all she has to do to cause more pain for me is to whisper a few more lies into her co-star’s left ear as he kisses her neck!
I should feel sorry for Spencer, because despite everything he’s done, he’s just another one of Chrissie’s victims, like me, Jenny, Beth… I’m going to stop this, and fired up big time, I go to the classroom where we always meet to play chess, Dictaphone primed and cameras rolling — clueless how this is going to play out.
Chapter 55
Hugging my stomach for fear of hurling, I will my hands to stop shaking as I play out every conceivable scenario in my head. I could confront her, tell her I know everything, or try to trick her into confessing by making her feel guilty. What to do? There’s only moments to decide. Confront, that’s more my style, but deceiving is hers, and she’s the one winning these ratings wars.
The handle turns. A second to curtain call. Confront or deceive? There’s no going back now.
“You all right?” she asks, slipping inside and closing the door behind her.
Realising I can’t confront, I shake my head and sit down on the desk in front of the security camera.
“Budge up!”
My whole body tenses as she sits next to me and hugs my arm. I can almost feel her sucking more of the life out of me, like some giant leech.
“What did Dad want?”
I shrug. “He just wanted to have a go at me — I’m flunking everything.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, really sounding sorry. “Do you want me to talk to him?”
“What’s the point? It’s just going to get worse unless I find out who really took that stupid mobile. You don’t know anything, do you?”
She shakes her head.
“You sure Spencer hasn’t let anything slip?” I ask, pushing things further. “You do see him a lot.”
“Only to go riding,” she replies, her face and body giving nothing away, even though she’s lying big time.
Refusing to give up, I try again, deciding to look at the floor because I don’t think my acting’s up to her standard of deceit. “Chrissie, I don’t care who it is,” I begin, my voice shaking as I struggle to hold back what I really want to say. “I know they’re probably scared and didn’t mean for any of this to happen…”
She shifts so she can hold my hand, as if to show me she understands.
“Chrissie, I won’t tell anyone.” I say it in a way that stops short of accusing her outright. “Not Spencer, not any of the masters, not Mum and Dad, no one. I’ll take the blame, and I won’t go after them. I don’t even care if I get expelled, but I need to know why they did it, so I can make things right.”
My big speech over, I wait for her to own up. I’ve offered her a lifeline, a lifeboat, and get-out-of-jail-free card all in one, but she still doesn’t love me enough to confess.
“I wish I could help, Rich,” she says, squeezing my fingers. “But I can’t — I don’t know anything.”
I don’t know how I continued to play the beaten-up hero on the verge of giving up, when inside I wanted to tell her I know she’s behind it all. But everything depends on the way I play this, and hoping Beth’s right about why Chrissie’s done all this, I continue the scene.
“I’m beginning to crack up…” I begin, my line easy to deliver, because I really am speaking from the heart.
“No, you’re not,” she says, hugging me hard. “You’re fine.”
“No, Chrissie. I’m not. Look at me. I’m a mess.”
She can delude herself all she likes, but she’d have to be blind not to see how I’ve changed. We’ve swapped roles. I’m becoming her, too skinny, with permanent black shadows and a nervous twitch, while she looks like a regular fourteen-year-old who’s got everything going their way.
“Do you remember what happened to the other guy who broke The Code?” I ask when she offers me no inspiring lies.
She nods. “Yes, he hung himself.”
“That’s what Spencer’s trying to make me do.”
“You’re wrong,” she says, a little too quickly. “Anyway, it’s nearly Christmas, and we’ll be out of here.”
“I’ll have killed myself by Christmas.”
“Rich, you don’t mean it!”
“Why?” Let’s face it, finding out your twin’s insane and trying to destroy your life is a good enough reason in anyone’s script. “You did when you were getting picked on at your old school.”
She shrinks back. “That was different.”
“Why?” I ask her, getting angry. “Do you know what he did to me in sickbay?”
“No,” she replies in a quiet voice that makes me believe she doesn’t know everything that’s happened.
“He tied my hands behind my back and tried to drown me in a bath of boiling water!”
She swallows and turns sickly white.
“I can’t take it anymore, Chrissie,” I cry, wishing I hadn’t gone back there, because now I’ve let those memories back into my thoughts, I feel even more pathetic. “I just want it to end. You don’t know how many times I’ve climbed onto the roof and nearly jumped off…”
That’s all I have to say to try to draw her out, make her think she’s going to be on her own. Beth and the others were right. Chrissie wants me all to herself. I chose the wrong Stephen King film as an analogy. I’m not in Christine. I’m in Misery!
“Rich, it’ll be all right.” She pulls me into a hug and kisses my head. “We’ll be home soon, and then—”
“It’s going to get even worse when we get home,” I tell her, trying to wriggle free before she suffocates me. “Or have you forgotten Spencer lives in the same condo in Mumbai?”
This time I succeed in shocking her — guess she’d forgotten that in her equation on how to turn me into her obedient slave.
“He’s never going to let this drop,” I go on. “And Mum and Dad can’t do anything, and he knows it!”
The silence goes on forever, and unable to keep still, I walk around kicking things. If she doesn’t say anything now, my only option is confrontation, and I know now if I don’t do as she wants, I’ll be the one getting hurt.
She planted Parker’s mobile on me because I didn’t meet her. She told Spencer I tried to stitch her up so he’d tell Parker and I’d be sent to Coventry. She staged hurting her ankle so I couldn’t go away with Beth, and to make sure I was around for half-term, she posted a fake break-up letter. And there’s more to come; I’ve still not been punished for getting back in contact with Beth. That’s going to happen on Friday after she has managed to manipulate Spencer with more of her lies.
“Rich,” she says after what seems like forever. “Will you be all right if Spencer backs off?”
“He’s not going to,” I say, running the back of my hand across my eyes to make out I’m still fighting back the tears.
“But what if he does?”
I turn round to look at her, and a strange sparkle in her blue eyes makes me shiver. “And why would he?”
“He would if he got caught with something stolen—”
This scene isn’t playing out how I thought it would. I thought she’d own up. I didn’t think she’d try to stitch up Spencer. “No one’s going to believe that.”
“Yes, they would,” she insists. “I’ll just take—”
“No!” I interrupt, even though this is just what I need to prove Chrissie’s the thief.
“But if he got caught, everyone would think he was lying about
you—”
“NO!”
“Rich, I want to do this.”
“No,” I say, deliberately turning my back on her for dramatic effect. “You’ll get caught, and I can’t risk them hurting you!”
“I won’t get caught,” she insists, almost begging as she spins me around. “Please, Rich; you know this is the only way.”
Chapter 56
I have everything I need to prove it wasn’t me. All I have to do is show it to Spencer. I don’t want to. He’s going to go nuts, that’s for sure, but hopefully he’ll realise I’ve done him a favour, and we can negotiate some kind of truce until the end of the term.
I really don’t know what else to do. I’m out of options. Like Captain Howard when the orders came for the big push, I have to do it, and hoping my story isn’t going to end with an epic battle that will see my guts splattered across the dorms, I walk deep into enemy territory and knock on Spencer’s door.
“Who is it?”
I don’t reply. Instead, I just go inside to find him and Jones sitting on their beds repairing the grips on their polo sticks.
“Get out!” Spencer snarls, standing up.
I exchange glances with Jones before shaking my head. “Not until you’ve seen this.”
He doesn’t even look at my camera. “Not interested in watching any more of your films.”
“You’ll want to see this one,” I insist, flipping open the viewing screen and getting ready to show him. “But first you’ve got to promise what you see stays between you and me.”
“And why would I promise anything?” he demands, nostrils so flared he looks like a bull about to charge the red flag.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll let you get stitched up exactly like I was!”
Jones shoots me a terrified look, but for once, I’m not pretending to be brave; as soon as Spencer’s seen what Chrissie’s really like, the war’s over.
“Are you threatening me, Jarvis?” Spencer demands, sticking his face in mine.
“No,” I reply, somehow managing to keep my cool. “I’m trying to help you — now give me your word this stays between us!”
“I’m not giving you shit!” he snarls, shoving me in the chest.
I stumble backwards, somehow managing to stay calm and on my feet for once. “I’m not the bad guy, Spencer. If you watch this—”
He rips the camera from my grasp and throws it on his bed. “I’m going to count to ten,” he warns me, that dark psychotic gleam returning to his eyes, “and if you’re not gone — I’m going to kill you.”