The Secret Place

It makes Julia feel even farther away from her. She doesn’t have the energy to rip anyone anything; she just wants to sit down on the disgusting carpet and lean her head against the bookshelves and stay there for a long time. ‘Come on,’ she says instead, heaving up her armful of binders. ‘Let’s go.’

After another week she realises that the cops aren’t coming. Finn hasn’t given them her name. He could have used it to bargain down the expulsion into a suspension, thrown it to the cops to get them off his back, but he didn’t.

She wants to text him, but anything she said would come out as Ha-ha, you’re in the shit and I’m not, sucker. She wants to ask his friends how he’s doing, but either he’s told them everything and they hate her, or he hasn’t and it would start rumours, or they’d tell him and he’d hate her even more, and the whole mess would just bubble up viler. Instead she waits till the others are asleep and bawls like a stupid whiny baby all night long.

After two and a half weeks the centre of the world is starting to turn away from Chris Harper. The funeral is over; everyone’s talked themselves tired of the photographers outside the church and who cried and how Joanne fainted during Communion and had to be carried outside. Chris’s name has fallen off the front pages, into the occasional snippet in spare corners that need filling. The detectives are gone, most of the time. The Junior Cert is just a few days from pouncing, and the teachers get narky instead of guidance-y if someone messes up a class by bursting into tears or seeing Chris’s ghost. He’s drifted off to one side: there, all the time, but in the corner of your eye.

On the way to the Court, under trees puffed up with full summer green, Holly says, ‘Tonight?’

‘Hello?’ Julia says, eyebrows shooting up. ‘And walk straight into a dozen of your dad’s buddies just waiting for someone to be that incredibly fucking stupid? Seriously?’

Becca is hopscotching over cracks, but Julia’s whipcrack voice gets her watching. Selena keeps on walking with her head tipped back, face turned up to the sweet swirls of leaves. Holly has her elbow to make sure she doesn’t smash into anything.

‘There aren’t any detectives. Dad’s always complaining about how he can’t even get surveillance authorised on, like, major drug dealers; no way would they authorise it on a girls’ school. So duh, incredibly fucking stupid yourself.’

‘Well, isn’t it just awesomesauce to have an expert on police procedure right here. I guess it never occurred to you that maybe your daddy doesn’t tell you everything?’

Julia is giving Holly her fiercest better-back-down glare, but Holly’s not backing anywhere. She’s been waiting weeks for this; it’s the only thing she can think of that might fix things. ‘He doesn’t need to tell me. I have brain cells-’

‘I want to go,’ Becca says. ‘We need it.’

‘Maybe you need to get arrested. I honest-to-God don’t.’

‘We do need it,’ Becca says, stubborn. ‘Listen to you. You’re being a bitch. If we have a night out there-’

‘Oh, please, don’t give me that crap. I’m being a bitch because this is a stupid idea. It’s not going to get any less stupid if we-’

Selena wakes up. ‘What is?’

‘Forget it,’ Julia tells her. ‘Never mind. Go think about pink fluff some more.’

‘Going out tonight,’ Becca says. ‘I want to go, so does Hol, Jules doesn’t.’

Selena’s eyes float over to Julia. ‘Why not?’ she asks.

‘Because even if the cops don’t have surveillance on the place, it’s still a dumb idea. Have you even noticed that the Junior Cert starts this week? Have you even heard them, every single day: “Oh you have to get sleep, if you don’t get sleep you can’t concentrate and you won’t be able to study-”’

Holly’s hands fly up and out. ‘Oh my God, since when do you care what Sister Ignatius thinks you should do?’

‘I don’t give a fuck about Sister Ignatius. I care if I end up stuck in, like, needlework class next year because I fail my-’

‘Oh, yeah, right, because of one hour one night, you’re totally going to-’

‘I want to go,’ Selena says. She’s stopped walking.

The rest of them stop too. Holly catches Julia’s eye and widens hers, warning. This is the first time in weeks that Lenie has wanted anything.

Julia takes a breath like she’s got another argument ready, the heaviest of all. Then she looks at the three of them and puts it away again.

‘OK,’ she says. Her voice has dulled. ‘Whatever, I guess. Just, if it doesn’t…’

‘If what doesn’t what?’ Becca asks, after a moment.

Julia says, ‘Nothing. Let’s do it.’

‘Woohoo!’ Becca says, and jumps high to pull a flower off a branch. Selena starts walking and goes back to watching the leaves. Holly takes her elbow again.

They’re almost at the Court; the warm sugary smell of doughnuts reaches out to make their mouths water. Something seizes Holly, in the tender space between where her breasts are growing, and drags downwards. At first she thinks she’s hungry. It takes her a moment to understand that it’s loss.