Zodiac Girls: Brat Princess (16 page)

“Hah! They’re not even crying,” I said as I turned
to PJ. “Surely they’d cry just a little bit? Hey. You’re not
Death are you?”

“Some people might say zat I am. I am Pluto and
if you don’t mind, I don’t like ze word ‘death’, I prefer
ze words ‘mortally challenged’.”

I almost laughed. “A politically correct phantom.
Oh, get a life will you?”

PJ gave me a scathing look. “You may laugh, but you
should listen to me. I don’t just deal in death. I deal in
ze transformation.”

“So you keep telling me. Look mate, PJ, Pluto or
whoever, I’m having a really bad dream and I’d like you
to butt out of it if you don’t mind. I…” I pointed at
the gravestone. “That’s my grave down there. Least it’s
not… because I’m up here, but… look here, I’d like to
go back to the dorm now and wake up. For this to be
over.”

PJ nodded. “To dream about death doesn’t
necessarily mean a physical death. It can be symbolic.
Like ze end of something.”

“Whatever. Yeah, but was that really my future? Is that
what’s going to happen or only what
might
happen?”

“Maybe it signifies ze end of something, Leonora.”

“The end of what? What?”

“Listen to vot zey are saying,” urged PJ, and
suddenly I could hear the people by the grave – as if
someone had suddenly turned up the sound on a
movie.

“None of her friends turned up,” said Henry.

“What friends?” asked Shirla. “She pushed them all
away. No-one stayed her friend for long.”

Henry shook his head. “What a shame. What a
lonely little girl she was.”

Mason scoffed. “Don’t feel sorry for her. She was a
total brat. A brat princess. No wonder she didn’t have
any friends.”

“What will happen to her money?” asked Shirla.
“Her savings account?”

“Her parents have become so disillusioned with
money and all that goes with it that they are going to
give all of their and Leonora’s savings away. Her
clothes have already gone to charity.”

“NoooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOO,”
I groaned. “I HAAAATE this dream. Get me out if it!”

PJ put a finger to his lips as if to hush me.

“Least we’re off the hook then,” said Shirla. “We
won’t have to repay our loans plus the interest. Glory
be for that!”

“Amen,” said Henry. “Amen.”

“I still feel sorry for her a bit,” said Shirla. “I think
she never did get over the death of her sister.”

“It’s true,” said Mason. “She was a sweet kid before
that.”

“I find that hard to believe,” said Henry. “But that
was before my time. What happened?”

Shirla shook her head as if even to think about it was
hard.

“Her younger sister,” she said. “She had an asthma
attack. Leonora, she blame herself although it wasn’t
her fault. Poor Poppy. Some nasty kid at their school
had been picking on her… a bully…”

I nodded. “Mo Bolton,” I whispered.

“One night, this girl and her friends, they’s taunting
young Poppy on her way home. She starts to have an
asthma attack and Mo runs off with the inhaler,
laughing like crazy, not realizing that, without it, the
poor girl couldn’t breathe.”

I felt tears come to my eyes. “That was my fault, my
fault. I should have been there.”

“Vhy vas it your fault, Leonora?” asked PJ. “It
vasn’t you who ran off wiz the inhaler. You loved
Poppy.”

A crippling pain hit my stomach and I buckled over.
“Enough. Don’t make me talk about this. Think about
this. I fear
this
more than anything else. Please, let it go.
Let me wake up now.”

“You can tell me,” said PJ. “I’m not real. It iz only
a dream, remember. Only a dream, so no-one else vill
ever know vot you say. It’s just between you and me.”

I felt my head begin to spin and was finding it hard
to breathe, dream or no dream.

“I… I… can’t…”

“Leonora, talk to me. You can tell me everyzing.
Leonora, you must let it out.”

I crumpled to my knees on the floor. Without
looking at PJ’s face, I began to tell him what happened
that fateful night.

“We went home together after school every day. Mo
Bolton didn’t bother her when I was around. She
wouldn’t dare. I could see her off easy. But that day…”
I felt a huge sob come into my throat, like a bubble
stuck there blocking my speech.

“Go on, Leonora,” PJ urged.

I forced myself to breathe. “… my friend Jasmine,
she wanted to go to the mall and I wanted to go with
her. Course Poppy wanted to come with us, but I said
no.”

“Why did you say no, Leonora?”

“I was… I was worried that Jasmine wasn’t my
friend any more. She’d been spending more and more
time with another girl in our class and I… I wanted to
make sure we were still bezzies.”

“Bezzies?”

“Best friends. Jasmine was my best friend and one of
the most popular girls in our year. I really wanted to stay
in with her because it meant that I was popular too. So
I told Poppy to go home on her own. It wasn’t far. Our
school was only at the end of our road, but… I
shouldn’t have let her go. She was crying and I told her
to grow up and stop acting like a crybaby. Mo and her
mates were hiding down an alley two houses away
from the lane that led to our house.”

“Had zat ever happened before, Leonora?”

I shook my head. “Mo lived on the other side of
town. I don’t know what she was doing down our way.”

“And had Poppy ever gone home on her own
before?” PJ asked.

I nodded. “Sometimes. Not often though. I usually
went with her, but this night… it was as if she had an
instinct that something was going to happen. Mo had
threatened her during the day. We never got to find out
as Mo was taken to a special school afterwards. All sorts
of people came out after Poppy’s death and said what
a bully Mo was. But it was too late by then. Too late
for my sister. I felt mean not letting her go with me, but
I… I wanted to stay in with Jas. If only, if only I…”
And then a dam burst inside of me. All the tears I had
been holding back came flooding through like an
avalanche.

PJ placed his hand on my back and let me sob my
heart out to him.

“I’m so sorry.
So
sorry. Don’t you see now? It was…
my… fault and my last words to her were to scram.
That she was… a silly crybaby. I didn’t want her
around. You should have seen her face. Like I’d
b…b…broken her heart. That face has stayed with…
me… for ever.”

PJ gently stroked my hair. “You poor, poor child,” he
said. “Poor, poor child.”

And that set me off crying again. I know I didn’t
deserve anyone to be nice. Anyone to call me a poor
child and stroke my hair. I was wicked. Hateful. The
worst person alive.

“After Poppy’s death, I thought that I would never let
anyone close again, so I put a wall up. Made myself not
care. I wouldn’t let anyone in.”

“Understandable,” said PJ in a gentle voice.

PJ let me cry until there were no tears left. And
nothing more to say. Just a feeling of complete and utter
exhaustion. I felt like I hadn’t slept for a million years.
But I was asleep, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I? It was all a dream
.

“Am I still dreaming?” I asked.

“Look around you,” said PJ and, when I did so, I saw
that I was in the dorm, back in my narrow bed at the
lodge. I opened my eyes and sat up. PJ was sitting on
the end of the bed. From the end of the room came
the sound of gentle breathing and Lynn snoring. Both
girls were asleep.

“Zey can’t see me,” said PJ. “Or hear us. It iz only
a dream.”

“But how are you here now in reality as well as then
in my dream?”

“To make sure you understood vot you saw,
Leonora.”

“I don’t think I understand
anything
any more,” I said.
It was all so extraordinary. However, I couldn’t deny
that I felt better for having told someone what had
happened with Poppy, even if PJ was a figment of my
imagination.

“I can see vhy you feel so bad about your sister’s
death,” he said, “but zere was nozing you could have
done. It vas her time. If she hadn’t gone zat way, she
vould have gone another. Zere vas nozing you could do.
You must understand zat. But here…” he indicated the
sleeping shapes of Lynn and Marilyn, “here zere’s a lot
you can do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Zink about it. Remember vat you’ve dreamt
tonight. You’ll find a vay. You vill, for in your heart,
you’re not a bad girl, Leonora Hedley-Dent.”

And when he said that I felt like crying again.

“And a Merry Christmas to you,” groaned Lynn when
the lights blasted on.

I leapt out of bed. “And a
Merry
Christmas to you,”
I said and I meant it. I felt totally, absolutely,
amazingly brilliant.

Lynn and Marilyn both threw their pillows at me.
“Shurrup will you?” they moaned in unison.

I felt like dancing, so I did. An Irish jig at the end
of the bed.

“Come on,” I said to the girls as the door opened
and Mark poked his head around. “Get up. It’s
Christmas Day.”

“But you don’t do Christmas, remember?” said
Marilyn.

Mark came in and sat on the end of Lynn’s bed and
he was soon joined by Jake. “Yeah. Are you on
drugs,
Leonora?” he asked.

I felt so good I hugged myself. “Nope. Just high on…
life! God, it’s good to be alive!” I stood on my head.
Just for the heck of it. When I saw the others’ faces, I
burst out laughing. Jake, Mark, Marilyn and Lynn were
sitting up gawping at me with open mouths.

“Aliens have been in the night and eaten your brain,
haven’t they?” asked Jake.

“Jake. Jakey baby. Jake my man. My mate,” I said
then did a cartwheel down the middle of the aisle
between beds, landed neatly at the end of Lynn’s and
gave him a hug. “Happy Chrimbole.”

He pushed me off. “Wergh. Gerroff. You’re
frightening
me!”

I went over and hugged Mark. He pushed me off too.
“Cut the vomit stuff, Brat Princess. I don’t buy it.
What’s the game? Is this some new trick to get out of
here? Jake’s already done the mad act. It didn’t work.
No point in you trying it, too… although I have to say
that you’re a lot more convincing than Jake was.”

“Do you think we should ask Mario to get a doctor?”
asked Marilyn. “I really think she might ’ave flipped.”

I laughed again. “No. Not really. This is the season
to be jolly and I am. Jolly that is. I feel good, no, not
good, GREAT!” I began to sing. “Oh… jingle bells,
jingle bells, jingle all the waaaaaaaay.”

Lynn noticed a small pile of parcels by the door.
“Hey look! Presents! Maybe they’re for us!” She raced
over to look and, indeed, the names on the labels were

ours. “Hurray. Presents. I
love
presents.”

There were two for me and one for everyone else.
I quickly unwrapped my first one to find that it was a
phone similar to the phone I’d destroyed on the first day
I’d arrived. Gold with a large diamond on it. It was
actually cute and I resolved that I wouldn’t break it this
time. In the second parcel was the necklace with the
lion’s head on it. I’d wondered where that had got to.
Mr O must have found it and kept it for me.

In the meantime, the others had unwrapped their
parcels too. Marilyn got a mug with Taurus written on
it (that was her birth sign). Lynn got a pink baseball cap
with a ram on it (she was an Aries) and a bottle of what
looked like paint remover. She laughed then rolled up
a sleeve and pointed at her tattoo. “It’s not real. It’s one
of the ones that come off with the right remover. I got
it done down the market. I don’t even like tattoos.”

“So why did you put it on?” I asked.

“To make me look hard but… I guess I don’t need
to do that any more.”

I went and gave her a hug. “No you don’t. We’re all
friends here.”

“You’re weird,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “To be friends. That’s all.”

She looked at me suspiciously, but I grinned back
at her.

Mark got a tiny laptop and some computer games
and a note saying,
For the next time you get bored
.
He looked well pleased with his gift.

“What did you get, Jake?” asked Lynn.

“Same as Mark. A dinky laptop and a computer
game. A
car
computer game and there’s a note with it.
It’s safer to joyride these cars than real ones
. Hmm.
I guess. What did you get Leonora?”

I showed them my phone and the necklace and the
girls oohed and aahed.
Just imagine if they saw my
collection back home
, I thought. One of my mobiles was
made from real diamonds.

Mr O appeared at the door. “So did you give each
other any gifts?” he asked.

Jake snorted. “What? Like a mouldy sock?”

“Or a potato?” asked Lynn. “We haven’t got
anything to give or hadn’t you noticed?”

“Leonora…” said Mr O, and he gave me the same
pointed look that he had given me the previous night
at the camp fire.

“What?” I asked. “What am I supposed to give?”
I put my hand up to my neck. “Not my locket. That’s
the only thing I’ve got here.”

“No-one wants your poxy locket,” sneered Marilyn.

Mr O sighed. “Your dreams, Leonora. Your
encounter with Neptune and Pluto. Didn’t you learn
anything
from them?”

“I… I…” I’d been so glad to wake up and realize
that my dreams had been just dreams that I hadn’t
given them any further thought, but Mr O was staring
at me like I’d missed something.

“Take five minutes all of you,” he said and began to
hand out paper and pens. “I thought each of you
might like to send your parents a message seeing as it’s
Christmas Day. If you write to them, Hermie will be
sure they get them some time today.” With another
pointed look in my direction, he left us alone.