Lying About Last Summer Page 10

  “Did you see the driver’s face?” laughs Danielle. Her eyes are shining. “We really made him jump.”

  nineteen

  Fay has saved me a place next to her for dinner. “Where’ve you been?” she asks. “I couldn’t find you earlier.”

  “The village,” I say. “Then Danielle and I went to Alice and Kerry’s room. We played cards and Danielle set up an online profile for Kerry on a dating website. How about you?”

  “I had the counselling… Then I couldn’t find you or Joe, so I went exploring.”

  I twist spaghetti with my fork as Fay tells me she walked round the edge of the grounds and found Joe jogging round the lake. She and Joe sat near the lake and had a Deep Meaningful Conversation.

  “He gets me,” she says. “He understands what I’ve been through. He was inspirational, actually.”

  Inspirational? Hmm. I reach for my napkin to wipe sauce off my chin.

  “We talked about Kyra too. He’s had a tough day today with it being her birthday. Did you know, he helps out on websites for teenagers who feel depressed? He should be a proper counsellor.” She looks down the table to where Joe is talking loudly about surfing. “He’s a very spiritual person when you get to know him.”

  “You don’t find him a bit…” I struggle to find the right word. “Pushy?”

  “He has strong opinions, but I like that. He’s sure of himself. Like my dad was. My dad loved coming up with new theories about things.”

  For some reason she’s talking about religion now, and I filter her voice out as I wrestle with my spaghetti.

  “Oh! I forgot to say,” says Fay in a higher pitch. “I’ve sorted out a team for tonight’s quiz. It’s you, me and Joe.”

  “Oh?”

  “Pippa needed the names of the teams for her spreadsheet. We’re called Quiz Whiz.”

  Great.

  It’s an inter-group activity. Everyone is in a team apart from a couple of leftover people who are helping to hand out paper and pens. That’s the role I’d prefer to sitting here in a team with Fay, who’s sitting very straight, and Joe, who’s practically horizontal, one knee up against the table and his body leaning back against the chair.

  “You’re going to have to switch that off in a minute,” Joe says to me, eyeing my phone like a disapproving teacher. “Or we’ll be disqualified.”

  “I know,” I say, and carry on flipping through my social media sites. Waiting for Fake Luisa to get in touch. I want him or her to trip up and say something that will identify themselves.

  Joe moves his knee, and without warning he’s right up close to me. “What’s so interesting?” His leg touches mine, and I shoot back on my seat, moving my leg and phone out of his way.

  I see if Fay’s noticed, but she’s watching the paper and pens being handed out.

  “Nothing,” I say. If I made a comment about him invading my personal space, he’d bounce it back at me, saying I was uptight.

  “Mobile phones. I hate them,” says Joe. “I have to have one, but I hate them.”

  He must have sat through a similar amount of how-to-be-appropriate-with-technology talks at school as I have. I can’t be bothered to enter the debate. In fact I don’t need to because Joe’s off on a rant about people spending more time on their phone than talking to each other. I almost laugh out loud; I’d rather be on my phone than hearing what he’s got to say.

  One pen and several sheets of paper are placed on our table. Fay sweeps them towards her. I turn off my phone, the quiz begins and my mind works fast, just not on the right questions. Why would someone pretend to be Luisa? Did they hack into MessageHound and randomly stumble on to Luisa’s and my private chat, or are they targeting me specifically? They only messaged me back when I sent that first message, but how long have they had access to the account for?

  I feel watched.

  “D’you know that one?” asks Joe.

  “What?” I ask. So far I’ve sat and looked on as Fay’s written down the answers with minimal consultation with Joe.

  “Name the first names of the members of the group ABBA.”

  “Clue’s in the name,” I say. “It’s why they were called ABBA: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid. My mum’s a fan.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” says Joe, as if he knew it all along and he was making me earn my keep on the team.

  As soon as it’s over and Pippa has collected the answer sheets, I turn on my phone. It pings immediately.

  “If you’re checking the answers,” says Fay, “I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure about the baby penguin question. If they’re chicks or fledglings?”

  “I’m not,” I say. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute.” I stand up and move away to the other end of the room, near where Pippa and two instructors are settling down to mark the quiz sheets.

  LUISA: That tartan shirt suits you.

  I dart my eyes round the hall. Turn a full circle, my body on hyper-alert. It was always unlikely that the person behind the messages was a random stranger, but now I know for sure. It’s someone who knows exactly who I am.

  This has gone too far.

  Joe wanders up with a bottle of water in his hands. He takes a swig from it and smacks his lips. “You’d be much happier if you weren’t so angry all the time,” he says.

  Is it him?

  “Where’s your phone?” I ask.

  “Calm down. You’re very aggressive.” He holds his hands up. One’s holding the water bottle, the other the lid. “I’m not like you. My phone isn’t surgically attached to me. It’s back in my room.”

  He could be lying. His phone could be hidden somewhere back at the table, under a jumper or in a bag of some sort. “Please leave me alone.” I turn away from him and busy myself with the baby penguin question.

  “We’re all mixed up on this holiday, but you – you’re a league apart,” says Joe softly. His eyes scare me a little with their intensity.

  “You think so?” I try to appear unruffled, to show him that I can brush his nasty remarks away easily. “How very nearly interesting.”

  I click on a penguin website. The young are usually called chicks, but they can be called fledglings. Fay will be happy; she wrote down fledglings. I look up. Fay’s watching Joe come back to the table, her face anxious. Did she have a phone on her earlier? I study the room. Danielle and Brandon are both on their phones, as are Kerry and Alice, and some of the Reds and Blues.

  I’ve been wearing this shirt all afternoon and evening. The person messaging me could be anyone in this room.

  We’re told to regroup in our teams for the results. Under the table, Fay’s legs are trembling. When she sees I’ve noticed, she places a hand on each of her thighs to still them. Everyone eventually quieten downs as Pippa holds up the prizes: bars of chocolate and the pens with Have an adventure with us stamped on them that you can buy in reception for £1.99, and three tacky trophies.

  “We’ll announce the winning teams in reverse order. In third place, team Giant Cookie…” She reads out three names and we clap while those people come up to receive their chocolate. “In second place, Quiz Whiz…” I turn to Fay. Her head is bowed. She’s gutted we didn’t come first.

  “We get the pens!” I say. “Come on, Fay. You did brilliantly.”

  Joe murmurs in her ear and massages her shoulder to encourage her to go up. I’m embarrassed to be associated with the pair of them, so I stand up first and collect the pen that I answered one question for. We get huge applause. Of course – we’re Yellows, the group the others feel sorry for. The three of us have to pose for a photo. We’re told to lean in close to one another, hold our pens up and say “prizewinners”. I hope I never have to see a copy of it.

  The team that comes first are Reds. They don’t look surprised to have won. Fay can hardly bear to look at them.

  A man with a moustache who appears to be the Reds’ leader urges us all to mingle for the next couple of hours. He points out the cans of drink on the counter where the break
fast cereals usually are and says any moment now there’ll be music when they work out how to switch on the music system. “Please socialize, make friends, and we’ll see you all back here tomorrow evening for the disco.”

  The room reverts to chatter, but the three of us sit for a moment in silence. A couple of Blues walk behind my chair and I hear one whisper to the other that he’s heard Yellow Group are orphans.

  I stand. “I’ll see you later,” I say, and I leave Fay and Joe to each other.

  I sit outside on the fire-escape steps, at the back of the dining hall with a supermarket own brand of orange soda. I know I shouldn’t engage with whoever it is who’s turned the messaging into a form of stalking, but I want to sound strong and in control.

  SKYE: Tell me why you’re stalking me.

  I take a mouthful of orange soda, and the tingling fizz of it is still on the roof my mouth when a reply comes back.

  LUISA: I’m not stalking you. We’re not enemies.

  It would have been better to be sitting in the hall, able to look round and see who was messaging.

  “Hi.” Brandon’s standing at the corner of the building. He made me jump. “I wondered where you’d gone.” He walks up to the fire escape. “Congratulations, by the way, on coming second.” He holds up his can of lemonade in acknowledgement.

  “Thanks,” I say, “but I only answered the question about ABBA.”

  “Are you OK if I sit down? The music choice in the dining room is a little … not my taste.”

  I switch my phone screen off. “What d’you know about MessageHound?” I ask. I watch his face closely when I say MessageHound. It sort of scrunches up with the effort of remembering. Or the pretence of remembering. It’s ironic that I accused him of stalking me when we were about to go orienteering, just because he kept choosing the same activities as me, whereas now I genuinely am being stalked.

  “Err, it’s been around for ages and hardly anyone uses it any more. Why?”

  “I’m on a group chat and it’s been hacked,” I say. “I want to find the hacker.”

  “Why bother?” asks Brandon. “Just get everyone to change their passwords, or set up a new chat.”

  “Yes, but…” I hesitate. I watch him get comfortable on the step below mine. Our heads are almost the same height now. I’d like to touch his face, trace a finger along his cheekbones, but I can’t let myself get too close to him until I know for sure that he’s not behind the messages.

  “My brother knew loads about hacking,” he says.

  “What about you?” I ask.

  “Nah. I’m into animation. We both were, me and my brother. He wanted to do film studies at uni.” He drains the last of the drink from his can, and pushes inwards with his thumb all the way round the top. I can tell this conversation is costing him effort. “He made a series of four video clips for me, and when he knew he didn’t have much time left, he programmed his email to send them to me once a month. The first one arrived when he was still alive but he couldn’t speak, and the others came after he’d died. It was freaky.”

  So he’s experienced a bit of what I have. “Like messages from a dead person?”

  Brandon nods. “He was obsessed with the idea of creating virtual avatars for dead people. There are companies already doing it, using data from emails, photos, social media – anything digital.”

  “But after you got over the freakiness, did you like getting them?”

  “Yeah.” He places the can in between his Converse. “I did. Mum got hysterical though. Each time one came through she wanted to watch it straight away, but then she’d break down within the first second. Dad was still living with us then. He had them backed up all over the place so they couldn’t be lost.”

  “D’you ever watch them now?”

  “Sometimes. When I can’t remember the sound of his voice.”

  There’s a ping from my phone. I force myself to ignore it, but I sag inside with relief. Brandon can’t be behind the messages because he’s right here with me. I ask him about his blog and I feel bad because I only half concentrate as he tells me what makes the perfect trailer for a film or book. How the things that are left out can be more important than what goes in. About lasting impressions.

  When his talk dries up, he says, “Want to go for a walk?”

  Badly, yes. So much that I’m tingling without having had any soda since Brandon found me. But I need to know what that new message says. I hesitate too long and he clears his throat and says, “You know, I think I’ll wander back in and see what the others are up to.”

  He picks up the can and turns away, avoiding any more eye contact. I watch him go, aware of a hollow feeling in my stomach. As soon as I can no longer see him, I touch the icon like the MessageHound addict that I’ve become. I hate myself. I don’t even care what this message says any more.

  LUISA: Don’t tell anyone about this.

  Is this a threat? My limbs shake uncontrollably from fear but I manage to stand, and walk slowly towards my accommodation, vigilant of everything around me.

  Brandon’s talk of avatars makes me glad there isn’t any film footage on the app in case my stalker could manipulate it into something really creepy. All at once, the part of the conversation about Brandon’s brother programming his email to send his video clips comes back to me. I find the settings option in the MessageHound app. About halfway down are the words Schedule Message. I never knew that option existed. Joe could have written the messages earlier in the evening and scheduled them to send later. So could Brandon or anyone else. I see how easily a person could reply directly to my messages sometimes, and schedule other things in between. That way, they could, if they wanted, make sure they’re with me when I receive a message, and get a kick from my reaction. I withdraw my hands and my phone into the sleeves of my tartan shirt and hug myself tight.

  twenty

  SKYE: Why would I take any notice of you?

  I schedule it to be sent at three a.m. for the hell of it, and when I wake at seven a.m. there’s no reply yet.

  It’s unsettling to wake up in a place where you’re not sure who to trust. The list of suspects has been circulating in my head all night: Joe, Danielle, Brandon, Fay, Alice, Kerry. Plus the rest of the Yellows, and all the Reds and Blues, except these messages seem personal. But anybody here could be aware of Luisa’s death, or connected to her in some way without me knowing.

  When Fay comes out of the bathroom and asks why I haven’t got up for breakfast, I tell her I’m too tired, and pull the duvet halfway over my head. I’m not lying about the tiredness, but I’m not ready to face the day and my stalker yet either.

  Fay doesn’t bother to ask Danielle, who’s either still asleep or pretending to be. “Are you sure, Skye?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Irony in action – you going for breakfast, me staying in bed.”

  “Joe says I should eat breakfast.”

  “Good for Joe,” I say, and jerk the duvet closed at the top, over my head, for a few moments until she goes.

  Later, when Danielle goes into the bathroom, I see her phone peeking out from under her pillow. It makes a vibrate noise and I listen to check that she’s in the shower before I leap across and lift the pillow to see what’s on the screen.

  There’s an image of an album cover I don’t recognize, probably because I haven’t reached the required level of cool, and overlaying that is a text from someone called Chazza:

  How are the wacko room-mates?

  I’m not sure what I was hoping to find on Danielle’s phone, but it wasn’t that. No doubt Danielle’s providing a running commentary about Fay and me to her mates. Nice.

  I dart back into my duvet nest. Is Danielle playing with me on MessageHound because she thinks I’m a wacko? Easily wound up? I shouldn’t have told her about Luisa and our chat group the night she gave me the sleeping pill.

  “Paintballing today,” says Danielle when she comes out of the bathroom. “Excellent. I like a fight.”

  After brea
kfast, Fay returns to the room and says she’s not doing paintballing because she did it once and was hit by a load of paintballs.

  “Isn’t that the whole point of paintball?” I ask.

  “I was bruised for months,” she says. “I spoke to Pippa at breakfast and she says it’s fine for me to stay here and sit on the patio outside the games room.” She takes an enormous book out of her suitcase. A chemistry textbook.

  All of us Yellows except Fay wait in the reception building with an instructor for the minibus to take us to the paintball centre. I study a wildlife poster and reflect on the fact that the photo of the jaunty fox looks nothing like the mangy animals that cruise the residential streets where I now live. Danielle is in a huddle with Alice and Kerry. Joe is having an earnest discussion with Henry, and Brandon is laughing with his room-mate Jack. I don’t blame Brandon for wanting to hang out with him rather than me after I gave him the cold shoulder yesterday evening. It’s OK though; I have a poster to look at.

  My phone pings as I study the photo of a strange crested bird. There’s a familiar thump in my stomach when I see Luisa’s name and read her imposter’s message.

  LUISA: It’s nice to talk when times are tough.

  I look around me but no one has their phones out. I can’t tell if it’s a scheduled message or not, but at least it’s softer in tone.

  I’m going to keep going with this weirdness until my stalker trips up. There are two days left at Morley Hill and I want to find out who’s doing this before I leave. I take a breath and type:

  SKYE: What d’you want to talk about?

  I send and look up, waiting to see if anyone reaches for their phone after hearing an alert or feeling it vibrate. No one does.

  On the minibus, Brandon has the choice of sitting next to me, but he walks past and plonks himself on the back seat. Danielle sits next to me because she wants to be near Alice and Kerry, who are sitting on the two seats in the opposite row. As soon as the minibus is moving, she undoes her seat belt and swivels her legs round into the aisle.

  Danielle is talking to Kerry and Alice about dumb ways to die. They list the people they’ve heard of who have slipped off cliffs, electrocuted or accidentally stabbed themselves, and I try not to listen because it panics me when I think about how many ways there are to die. “You’ve got to have heard that song,” says Danielle. “‘Dumb Ways to Die’. It’s Australian. My friend and I learned all the words and performed it at a talent show one year. I’ll find it for you. Hang on.” She finds her phone in her pocket and switches it on. “Rubbish signal,” she says. “Give me a moment.” She hums. “Okaaay. Text message from my dad. He’s so effing hopeless. He can’t remember where we keep the light bulbs.”