Lying About Last Summer Read online

  As soon as Fay leaves for the talk and Danielle disappears to make a private phone call, I decide to Google everybody else in Yellow Group whose surname I can remember from the sign-up sheets.

  Ironically for someone so willing to invade other people’s privacy, Danielle is almost totally anonymous online apart from a mention in one article. She was nominated for an award at a young carers’ association, for looking after her wheelchair-bound dad, and her mother, before she died of cancer of the spleen. It doesn’t mean she hasn’t hacked into MessageHound. I don’t find anything that allows me to eliminate or flag up anyone else either.

  I allow myself a quick scroll through the MessageHound photos. A moment of pretending that everything is as it used to be and Luisa is at the other end of the messages. I find a photo of her foot, taken to show me a bruise on it from someone treading on it at a party. I know it’s from last summer because of her red and pink toenails. My eyes switch to my own pink and red toenails. The nail varnish is chipped on a couple of nails. I should probably paint them a different colour, and that thought brings with it a rush of sadness.

  By the time it comes to the evening, I’m not certain I can face a disco with a load of holiday camp kids who I don’t know and a few I barely know. And Joe. The alternative, however, is to hang out in the room with Fay, who says she doesn’t want to go because she hates loud music and is tired.

  “You should try it for a bit,” I say, as much to myself as to her. “You can always come back if you hate it. It’s not as if you have to wait for a bus or a parent to come and pick you up, is it?” I grasp my dress at the waist and twist the fabric round me to see how tight it’s got. It’s more of a clinging than skimming situation.

  “Joe’s going, isn’t he?” says Danielle. “I’d have thought that was a good enough reason for you.” She checks her heavy eye make-up in her little mirror, and I wonder who’s looking after her dad back home. If she trusts the person to do a good job.

  My phone pings.

  “That high-pitched noise is irritating,” says Danielle. “Can’t you change it to a duck quack or something?”

  I look at her. Has she scheduled this message? I’m itching to open it, but I don’t want to do it in front of her.

  Fay pushes her feet into some glittery ballet-pump shoes that have an elastic strap across the foot. The type that bridesmaids wear. Ten-year-old bridesmaids. “I’m ready,” she says, the mention of Joe having clearly changed her mind.

  “You go on,” I say. “I need to text my mum back.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” says Fay.

  “I’m going,” says Danielle. “See you.” She pushes past me and shoots off.

  Fay hovers near her bed, and I open the message, concentrating on keeping my face as emotionless as I can.

  LUISA: Don’t forget.

  “Skye? Skye – is everything all right with your mum?”

  “What?” I see Fay coming over, frowning with concern. “Oh. No. It’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  Don’t forget … Luisa? Or something else? Two small, confusing words that make me shiver as I walk along the path with Fay in the humid evening.

  Some effort has been put into making the main dining hall look less of a canteen and more of disco venue, with black curtains at the windows, lights and a dangling mirrored ball. There’s a proper DJ, or at least a live person, doing the music. Nobody’s dancing yet, but the place is full. In the gloom, I can see that the tables round the hall are all taken.

  Fay clutches my arm as we walk in, and whispers, “Don’t leave me, will you?”

  “No, don’t worry,” I say, although my heart sinks a little.

  All the Yellows are sitting at the same table. Danielle’s nabbed the last seat, next to Brandon. Joe’s talking to Alice, offering advice, no doubt, and keeping up his image of Mr Nice Guy.

  “Wait.” I hold Fay back from walking towards the table. “There aren’t any more chairs there. Let’s sit somewhere else.”

  “Where?” asks Fay.

  We gaze round, and Fay says, “Look,” and I see that Brandon is waving us over. Before I can say anything, Fay is halfway across the hall.

  Keep breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  “Here, Skye!” Brandon offers me half his seat. Alice moves and perches on Kerry’s lap, and Fay sits on the vacated seat, even though it would make much more sense for Fay to sit on someone’s lap since she’s by far the lightest person here. Joe moves his chair closer to hers. “How are you feeling?” I hear him murmur.

  I inch in beside Brandon, trying to judge how far my bum will overhang. He smells of a deodorant that’s more subtle than your average boy’s. He’s wearing jeans, and a shirt that’s got a black-and-white photographic print of flowers on it.

  “The shirt was a present,” he says when he sees me giving it the once-over. “Not my usual style.”

  *

  Everyone’s joking about the terrible music. Jack rolls some tubes of Pringles on the table, and Brandon shows us how to slot the crisps together to make a big ring. When we’ve taken photos, someone prods it, and the crisps scatter, some of them skimming into people’s laps, some off the table on to the floor. Danielle produces a bottle of vodka from her bag, swigs from it, and hands it to Kerry. “Pass it round.” The music’s improved and a couple of people go to dance, then a couple more. I move across to sit on a vacant seat.

  “D’you like dancing?” asks Brandon. He has to shout a little so I can hear.

  I wobble my hand. It means: Sort of. Depends. I glance across at Fay and she catches my eye. She nods. It means I’m OK here with Joe. Off you go.

  “Come on!” Brandon mouths, and I don’t do the I’m-not-sure thing because I love this upbeat track, and my mood is lifting, and yes, I really want to dance with him. I can already tell that he’s not a self-conscious dancer, that he dances because he likes the music and the rhythm and because it’s fun. The sort of person whose confidence increases when they dance.

  I don’t think about anything else as I sing along to the stupid lyrics, raise my arms and feel my body relax. Brandon takes my hand and twirls and twists me and drops it again and we mirror dance, and I laugh because I can’t keep up with him. We dance for ages, and as a slower track comes on, I feel Brandon’s arms around my back, and everything else falls away. It’s him and me, and I love how he’s looking at me, as if he thinks I’m worth gazing at, his eyes deep and soulful. My skin is super-aware of his touch. Craving more contact. I wouldn’t even care if Danielle was filming us.

  “The best bit of the week has been meeting you,” he says. “Of course it sucks that we have to meet here—” He raises his eyes to the dining room, to Morley Hill, and its significance for us. “With you I don’t have to pretend that I’m doing OK the whole time.”

  I nod.

  “And you’re yourself with me too, right?” he says.

  There’s an emptiness inside me. I can’t speak, so I smile, a deceitful smile, and he leans closer, so close that I feel his hair against my face. When the track finishes, I say, “I’m thirsty. I’ll get us some drinks.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he says.

  “No, I’m fine,” I say, and I go before he can argue. At the drinks table, I let people push in in front of me and I spend ages seeing what’s there, and pretending to decide which ones to choose. I haven’t been honest with Brandon. I’ve kept him from knowing what I’m really like. Someone who lies rather than admits the terrible part they played in their sister’s death. Someone with trust issues. He could do so much better than me. He should set his sights higher.

  I take the cans over to the table we were sitting at, now empty. Not even Fay is there. She must have gone back to our room. Brandon sees me and dances over, exaggerating his dance moves.

  “I’m not feeling too good,” I say as I hand him a lemonade, the same type I saw him drink last night after the quiz. “I’m going to have to go back to the room after I’ve had
this.”

  More lies. Brandon wants to walk me back to the room, but I shake my head. “Stay. Have fun.” I turn away so I can’t see his face, but I’ve already glimpsed the hurt.

  The dance floor is crowded. The song is bouncy but there’s a couple in a swaying embrace at the edge of the main action. The guy is tall, and he has his large, muscly arms round a much smaller, spindly girl. He’s almost pushing her into his chest. It’s Joe with Fay.

  twenty-two

  “There’s an explanation,” says Fay softly.

  My eyes haven’t been open more than a few seconds. Fay’s sitting up in bed reading her chemistry book, and I’ve no idea what she’s going on about. In the bed between us, Danielle is still lumped under the duvet, breathing heavily. Outside there’s the sound of instructors and catering staff arriving for work. Car doors banging. Somebody shouting something about a tangled badminton net.

  “Kyra didn’t like her birthday being in October because the rest of her family had October birthdays too,” says Fay. “So she and Joe decided she should celebrate it in July. It was their tradition. I think it’s really sweet.”

  I wipe the fuzziness from my eyes. It’s an explanation but I don’t know that I buy it. “How long did he and Kyra go out for? How much of a tradition was it?”

  “I don’t know, but Joe said it was a tradition so that’s enough for me.”

  “I wonder why Kyra sent a naked photo of herself to that boy if she was going out with Joe at the time, or was she trying to split up from Joe?”

  Fay shakes her head, annoyed. “She got tricked into it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but as Joe says, it’s none of your business.”

  That’s me slapped down. I reach for my phone. No messages.

  I walk to breakfast on my own. Fay says she felt sick most of the day yesterday because she’d forced herself to eat breakfast so she’s not going to make the same mistake today. I don’t much want breakfast myself but I want to get out of our room.

  Pippa stops me on the steps leading up to the main dining room. “Skye, I was hoping I’d see you. It’s a shame you didn’t make the talk on resilience yesterday. I’ve noticed how attached you are to your phone.”

  I glare at her. There’s no way I’m going to let her confiscate it.

  “We talked about the pros and cons of social media and online forums.”

  Does Pippa know about my MessageHound messages?

  “We discussed the value of real-life friends versus online strangers,” continues Pippa.

  Is she trying to warn me? I keep my face as blank as I can.

  A crowd of girls are walking across the lawn to the main dining room. We’re in the way on these steps. “There are some interesting experiments being done on social media and grief. I’m doing some research in this area myself,” says Pippa. She glances at the girls coming towards us. “Anyway, it was a good session. Try and come along to the next one. I think you’ll find them useful.”

  I nod, and move quickly into the dining room before the girls sweep me up with them. My head is whirling as I join the breakfast queue. Is Pippa grooming me to take part in some horrible experiment?

  No. I’ve become completely paranoid.

  Nico comes into my head as I pick up a tray from the pile. My whole body loses concentration and the tray clatters to the floor. Why haven’t I suspected Nico before now? He’ll be coming to the end of his short sentence; he had a good lawyer. I retrieve the tray, grabbing at it a couple of times before gripping it properly. Then there’s the man doing time for Luisa’s manslaughter. Do prisoners have access to the internet? Have I been tagged wearing my tartan shirt on someone’s Instagram or Twitter feed that they might have seen? Could I have been seen by any of the swimming squad? How many people are there who might dislike me this much?

  My hand shakes so badly that more cereal ends up on the tray than in my bowl. I slosh milk over and look round for a table. I want to sit on my own but Kerry is sitting with Joe’s room-mates and Rohan whistles to attract my attention to say there’s space for me at theirs. At least Joe isn’t with them.

  “Joe’s gone jogging,” says Henry. “He woke up in a great mood this morning. Can’t think why.”

  Kerry laughs. “Alice and I had a bet that Skye and Brandon would be the first holiday romance of our group,” she says. “And we were nearly right! But it’s Fay and Joe. Ahhh.” She tilts her head and makes a gushy face, and I don’t detect any sarcasm. “Fay not wanting to come to breakfast this morning?”

  “Nah, she’s reading in bed,” I say. I spread out my cereal and pat it, so that it’s submerged under the milk, like a lost city.

  “They’re so sweet together, aren’t they?” says Kerry. “She’s shy, skinny and clever, and he’s big, confident and sporty.”

  The boys nod. “Joe really likes her,” says Rohan.

  Am I the only person who doesn’t think Fay and Joe make a cute couple?

  I don’t go straight back to the room after breakfast. I walk to a secluded bench and think about Luisa and Nico, and how nobody could see what was going on until everything went wrong. Don’t forget the last message said. I open MessageHound and type:

  SKYE: I remember everything.

  After quitting the app, I check the weather forecast. Overcast but warm. Ten per cent chance of rain.

  It was hot and humid the day Luisa died. Mum started the day with a low-grade breakdown. She’d forgotten it was her turn to do the teas and coffees for the support group she was involved in through Oscar. Oscar was going on a play date but she was worried he’d catch a cold from his friend and wouldn’t be able to have his operation. In fact she kept taking Oscar’s temperature to see if he already had a fever. She tried to get Dad to stay at home to look after him, but Dad had a crucial meeting with his accountant, and he shouted at her that he couldn’t believe she’d forgotten and he was already late. On top of that she wasn’t ready for a couple of her friends who were coming to stay the night on their way to a holiday cottage, and a fox had done another poo on the trampoline.

  I heard all this going on while I lay in bed.

  Mum came in and told me to get up, get dressed and make up the bed in the spare room with Luisa before I did anything else, then she went off to tell Luisa the same thing. The slammed front door as she left was a reminder that she meant it.

  “You feeling better, Skye?”

  Brandon slams me back to reality. He must have had an ultra-quick breakfast or just gone into the dining room to grab the bread roll that’s in his hand.

  “Er, yeah. Are you all right?”

  “Yep.” He sits beside me on the bench. If he’d asked whether I minded, I’m not sure what I’d have said.

  He stretches out his long legs, and I see his perfect, smooth kneecaps and his long calves. “I hope I didn’t say anything stupid last night that … I don’t know … upset you?”

  “No. No. You didn’t. I was…”

  “Skye,” he interrupts. “D’you have a boyfriend back home?”

  I feel wrong-footed. “Er, no. No boyfriend. Last night I wasn’t feeling very good, but I’m fine this morning.”

  “OK.” He sounds embarrassed now. “I’ll see you at the climbing wall, then.” He stands up, and I resist the urge to let everything spill out about the messages, about failing to save Luisa. About how I really like him. That would require trust though, and I can’t allow myself to make any more mistakes.

  “Yes,” I say in a voice that sounds horribly like Mum’s when she’s trying too hard to be bright and cheery. “I’ll see you there.”

  I open MessageHound when Brandon’s sufficiently far away.

  SKYE: I can’t do this any more.

  The message shoots back straight away.

  LUISA: Why not?

  Up ahead, I can still see Brandon walking back to his accommodation block. He’s eating the bread roll, and he’s definitely not been on his phone. I stare at him, and watch him turn
into the path that leads to the door of his building. My message was answered just now. He therefore can’t be the person messaging, and whoever’s pretending to be Luisa has done me a favour. I can eliminate Brandon as a suspect.

  If only I’d trusted him.

  A photo appears on my screen because MessageHound is still open. It’s of some flowers. White flowers and green foliage on a wooden table. There’s no accompanying message. It reminds me of some of the floral tributes at Luisa’s funeral. What does it mean? That I deserve to die too?

  twenty-three

  Today, our last full day before we go home, is the day we jump off a twenty-metre tower at a disused army base. The posters round the main dining hall describe it as a free-fall adrenaline-rush adventure that you don’t need a parachute or a bungee cord for, thanks to an invention called a Powerfan which slows the descent. It’s what made me excited to go on the activity camp when I first read the leaf let.

  But first there’s an hour and a half of climbing on the indoor wall at Morley Hill. The instructors tell us to empty our pockets and put the contents in a Tupperware box. I shove a packet of mints in but I hang on to my phone for now.

  We take off our shoes and replace them with smelly, battered climbing shoes. After I’ve stepped into my harness, I watch the others lift each other up by their straps and joke about wedgies. We’re issued with helmets, and told to sit on the two benches to wait our turn to climb.

  The first two climbers are Henry and Rohan. I watch them climb for a few minutes before I can no longer bear listening to Joe shouting encouragement at them, as if he’s their instructor. I turn to my phone and study the photo of the white flowers. I wonder if it means something that I haven’t thought of yet, and if I keep racking my brain it will come to me. At first I think my stalker’s used a stock photo from the internet but as I enlarge it I think it might be an original shot because the quality isn’t great. There’s a mark as if there was a tiny smudge on the camera lens when it was taken, and the flowers aren’t arranged very neatly. They’ve gone to some trouble, buying and placing the flowers on a table, and that makes it nastier.