Zodiac Girls: Brat Princess (10 page)

Jake’s background was the saddest of all. He had a
younger brother who was ill and all the family’s money
went on medical bills. Jake had stolen a car and tried
to sell it to raise funds. I
almost
felt sorry for him and
the others when their tales of woe came out, but I
steeled myself and put up an inner wall just in time.
Reminded myself that I didn’t let anyone get too close.
It only caused pain if I did. I knew that from past
experience. And anyhow, I could fix their problems in
a second by lending them some dosh from my private
savings account. I’d ask for interest, of course. It could
all be so easily sorted. I even offered at a return plus
twenty per cent which I thought was quite generous
considering the circumstances.

None of them took up the offer, so I pushed down
the sympathy I’d fleetingly felt for them. All their
problems could be resolved. Not like mine. None of
their stories was as tragic as mine, but they’d never get
to hear it, not one of them, not even Lynn.

6 – 7 p.m.
Supper, which was rice and vegetables
or baked potato and vegetables. Vegetables! Yeee-uck.
I so don’t do vegetables. Or at least didn’t used to. I used
to think that broccoli was for losers. And now I have to
eat it most nights because, if I don’t, I’d get nothing else.
I tried not to think about Tigsy and the stay I missed
at the fabocious hotel in Paris. She’d have been eating
the best of everything. Dinky dishes on divine designer
plates, not this plastic rubbish they use here. And to
think
of some of the meals I had sent back because they were
too cold or too hot or too slimy! I’d
kill
for them now.
Even an avocado would be welcome.

7 – 10 p.m.
Recreation time, meaning more
misery in the way of sports activities and workshops,
sometimes with Mr O and sometimes with Macho
Mario. No
real
recreation. Like shopping. Or TV. Or
eating chocolate or anything that reminded me of
home. Mr O was distinctly cooler with me after the first
day when I tried to run away, and he kept muttering
under his breath about “a waste of time,” and “never
in all his days had he met with such ingratitude.”
Pfff
,
I thought.
He is so used to being the centre of attention, which
is why he doesn’t like it if someone disses him
.

I went along with the routine because I had to,
although every day felt like it lasted an eternity. I
even
had to ask permission to go to the bathroom! But there
was no escape. I played along and they thought I’d
given in. Idiots! As if. I hadn’t. Not in my head I
hadn’t. Someone would pay. And when I got out, I’d
soon show Mum and Dad how much their little
betrayal had
really
cost them!

Of course I did my best to rebel in the first couple
of days. Every trick in the book. But these guys were
good, they were
very
good and it was going to take me
some time to work out how to get the better of them.
I tried feigning a heart attack, a vomit attack, headache,
migraine, but they just yawned like they’d seen it all
before and – having witnessed Jake’s nut-boy antics and
Mark’s prolonged silence, I guessed that they had.

In the first week, I went without some meals – like
when I discovered I had to actually help cook the food.
All I said when asked to chop some onions was
“Excuse me, do I look like anyone’s slave?” and I
wasn’t allowed any dinner! My clothes soon began to
feel looser through lack of food.

I went without my pillows as a punishment for
running away on my first day and I went without hot
water for starting the porridge fight, which was
so
unfair because I did clean up in the end – after about
eight hours, in fact, which is something of a record for
getting me to do something.

For the first three days, Mario insisted that I was kept
apart from the others and made me sit in a stone circle
in the main hallway. On my own. For hours on end. He
told me that he was actually being kind because some
inmates had to sit in a stone circle
outside
in the cold and
that’s what I’d have to do if I didn’t co-operate. And
that’s when I decided I’d play along for a while. It was
sooooooooooo boooooooooooring in that stupid circle,
but being chucked out into the freezing December
weather would have been even worse. I finally had to
give in and say, whatever. I decided that I would play
the game. Whatever it took to get out of here and back
to my normal life.

Some evenings there were more messages from Mr
O at the end of my bed. Always about the stars, stuff
like – today Mars has been at an angle to Saturn. Or,
Pluto was square to the Sun or trident or sextile – with
bits of advice thrown in. I asked the others again about
the zodiac thing and they knew nothing about it. None
of them was a Zodiac Girl or Boy, that was for sure.
Seeing as they were my only allies in there, I didn’t
pursue it. I didn’t want to be any more of an odd girl
out than I already was. I acted like I was going along
with it to Mr O though, and smiled and thanked him
for his kind messages – then I tore them up and put
them in the bin.

One thing I swore to myself and that was that no-one
would see me cry. I’d never let them know that they
had upset me. And one of these days, I would get my
revenge. And
then
they’d be sorry.

One of the weekly tasks in counselling was to write
a letter home. My first one went like this:

GET ME
OUT
OF HERE!!! NOW!!!!!

But then Lunie Pants Selene took a look at it and told
me that I had to do it again. “Dig deep, my little
flower,” she said. “Tell them how you really feel.”

So I wrote this:

Mum and Dad,
(I wrote Dear Mum and Dad then
realized that they
weren’t
dear, not to me. Not any more.
So I crossed the “dear” out.)
GET ME OUT OF HERE
NOW
!!!! I HATE YOU. I am locked up with a bunch of crazy
people who think that they are stars!!!

That letter got vetoed as well.

“You asked me to tell dig deep and I did,” I said.
“That’s how I feel.”

Lunie made me do a third one.

Mr and Mrs Hedley-Dent,

I have been instructed that I have to write you a letter as a
weekly task. I do this under pressure, like everything else in this
cold miserable godforsaken place, because I have learned that if I
don’t do as I am told then I am punished or starved. I HATE
you more than ever and can’t believe you have made me suffer in
this way. When I get out of this prison sentence you have put me
through, I will be going to live with someone else. I disown you
as my parents. And I will sell my story to the papers so that
everyone knows what horrible people you are. And then you’ll be
sorry. So there
.

Look after Coco
.

From Leonora Hedley-Dent

“I am soooo going to make my parents pay for this,”
I said to Lynn at the end of week one as we went to
the gym for sports activities.

“Yeah,” she said. “In the meantime, though, I
wonder what torture Mario has lined up for us this
evening.”

We didn’t have to wait long to find out. Mr O came
jogging around the corner. He looked ridiculous. He
was dressed in a white tracksuit with what looked like
a white cashmere scarf tossed casually around his
neck. His trainers were pure white too, like they’d
never been worn outside. With his dazzling good looks,
he always looked like he was about to go into a photo
shoot for a men’s catalogue – not a hair out of place,
his teeth brighter than bright, his skin so tanned it was
almost orange.

“Hedley-Dent, you’re with me,” he said. “The rest
of you, Mario said meet him out front for a night
hike.”

“Oh nooooooooo,” groaned Jake. “Not again.”

“Fresh air is good for the soul,” said Mr O, who then
indicated that I should follow him. I slouched along
behind him as he led me into the gym and flicked on
the lights. Hanging from the ceiling was what looked
like an enormous sausage.

“
What
is that?” I asked.

Mr O flashed his kilowatt smile. “
That
is whatever
you want it to be.”

“Ah. So it’s a private plane to get me out of here?”

“No need to be sarcastic, Leonora. Didn’t you get my
zodiac message this morning?”

I shrugged. “Yeah.” Like all the messages, I had cast
a cursory glance over it before putting it in the bin. It had
said something about the Moon being square to Mars.

“Emotions that are hard to express can manifest in
anger or impatience, especially for a Leo. I’m going to
show you another way to get them out.”

“Whatever,” I said and pointed back at the sausage
thing. “So. What is it?”

“It’s a punchbag.”

“You’re going to teach me to box?”

“Not exactly.”

“So what then?”

“Go and give it a bash and you’ll see,” he said. “I’ll
show you how.”

He pranced off towards the bag and starting taking
jabs at it in the way that you see boxers doing when in
training for a fight. After a few minutes, he stopped,
went to the equipment cupboard at the back of the
gym, pulled out a pair of boxing gloves and tossed them
to me. “Your turn.”

I put on the gloves, approached the bag and gave it
a tap.

“Put some
elbow
into it, girl,” commanded Mr
Razzle Dazzle.

I gave it another tap.

“Nooooo, like this,” said Mr O as he ran towards the
bag and whacked it. “Come on Leonora.
Go
for it.”

I gave it a few more half-hearted taps. Like, boxing
is so last decade. “Okay. Okay. I’m doing it. I’m doing
it.”

Mr O started prancing around me making little
jabby punching motions. “Hit it, go on. Hit it.”

He was starting to annoy me. I hit the bag with a
little more force.

“
That’s
more like it. Come on. Let’s get a little
energy up here. Come
ON
. Show me what you’re
made of.”

I stopped and yawned. “I am
so
not interested in this.
Like, give me a break. You’re supposed to be my
guardian, aren’t you? Don’t I get some time off for good
behaviour? Time off for being Zodiac Girl or
whatever?”

“This
is
your time off. You could be out there hiking
with the others.”

“Oo. Pardon me if I don’t fall over with gratitude.”

“Pardoned,” said Mr O and flashed me a grin.

“I was being sarcastic.”

“So was I.”

He started ducking and diving around me,
pretending I was the punchbag, although he didn’t
touch me. Jab, jab. It was getting very,
very
annoying.
“Go on punch the bag,
punch
the bag.”

So I did. I
really
punched it.

Mr O continued dancing behind me. “Excellent.
Now. Who makes you mad?”

“You do.”

“Then pretend I’m the bag.”

I did. And I whacked the bag with all my might.

Jab, jab. Mr O continued around my head like he
was a fly, buzzing round. Jab, jab, buzz, buzz. “Now
who else annoys you?”

“
All
of you here.”

“Great. Good. Now pretend the bag is Dr Cronus.”

I whacked it. “Take that old Wiz Woz.”

“Wiz Woz?”

“Yeah. Cronus looks like an old wizard.”

“I guess he does. Now. Do Selene,” said Mr O, all
the while continuing to dance around me in a circle,
jabbing the air with his clenched fists.

I whacked the bag again. “And you, Miss Hippie
Happy Clappy.”

Mr O snorted with laughter. “Hippie Happy
Clappy. Hah! And your mum and dad. You’re mad at
them, aren’t you.”

He was talking fast and spinning round me in circles
and, when he mentioned Mum and Dad, I felt the rage
I’d been holding back all week while I’d been doing my
Miss Play-along role rise to the surface. I began to hit
the bag. Whack. Whack. Thwack.

Mr O was gleeful and punched the air. “Who else?
Who else?”

“Henry. Grrrrrr.” Mr O didn’t have to encourage me
this time. I’d got the hang of it and, once I’d started, I
couldn’t stop. It was like a tsunami of rage was
flooding through me and I was helpless to stop it.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!”

I whacked Henry with all I’d got. Then Shirla for not
coming with me on the plane. And Mr Nash at my last
school for expelling me. And Mrs Simons. And
Headmaster Ericson. And Polly James in my last
dorm. And… There was a long list of contenders
lining up in my head to have their faces imprinted on
the punchbag. I went for it. Punch. Thwack. Punch.
Thwack. And a few kicks for good measure.
Thwackawackawacka-wackawack. I whacked away
until there was no more whack inside of me. I was
whacked out. I bent over to catch my breath. I was red
in the face. And perspiring. And then
she
was there, a
face at the end of the queue of people to be mad with.
I took a sharp intake of breath and pushed her back
to the recesses of my mind. But she’d been there for a
second. Mo Bolton. Looming up like an ominous
shadow with that snide look that she’d always had
when she sensed a fight was about to happen.

Mr O seemed to sense that I’d reached some kind
of wall or door inside of myself. “Enough?”

I held up a hand. “Enough.”

“Take a few breaths, Leonora,” said Mr O, then he
added gently. “You did good. You did really good.”

And the strange thing was, I
felt
good, just for a few
seconds. Like I’d released something from deep inside
of me.

And then suddenly I felt very tired. I crumpled to the
floor and lay with my arms out like a cross. Mo mustn’t
be allowed out. I mustn’t even think of her. What she
did. And even worse, what she made
me
do to Poppy.

It was December 24
^th
, Christmas Eve and just after
breakfast. I’d been at the funny farm for almost three
miserable, stinking weeks. Mr O had left his usual note
this morning, something about Saturn and Pluto and
restrictions. I don’t know why he bothered. The
messages didn’t make any sense. Plus there had been
a bit about Mars moving into Aquarius which would
bring about a more relaxed feeling and Jupiter putting
in an appearance.
Like ding dong merrily on high,
I thought.
Relaxed about being here over Christmas? Was that supposed to
make me feel better?
I was counting down the days.
Counting down the hours. Counting down the minutes
until I could get out of there and back to my life.