Élodie has always been something of a loner at school. It’s one of the things her teachers brought up, right from her earliest days at the village crèche. “Élodie doesn’t seem to have many friends,” they said, though I knew they really meant “any.” Only one teacher, young and earnest, in her first year of the job, made a slightly different observation, but for me it was a crucial one. “Élodie doesn’t seem to need friends,” she said, and that was much more like it. I could never imagine her as the girl sitting alone, wistfully looking on as the others played. She simply wasn’t interested.
And then she was.
I don’t know what changed, possibly just boredom, or else a growing awareness that there is pleasure or at least interest to be had in playing with others. I don’t mean playing only in the straightforward sense, of course. In French there’s only jouer but in English there’s toying. That’s more apt.
There are two girls in her class, Thérèse and Sophie. Their mothers have been friends since childhood so, inevitably, their daughters are close too. They are more than that, though: these two are inseparable. They sit together, they eat together, they hold hands in line, they plan how they will both wear their hair the next day.
Three is always a crowd with little girls. As far as anyone can tell from what Thérèse, Sophie, and the other children are willing to say afterward, Élodie worked on Sophie first. She was the shyer of the two friends; if one was to be brutally honest, she was a paler version of Thérèse in all ways. I don’t know why Élodie mounted her charm offensive on Sophie first; perhaps because Thérèse was a more formidable opponent to go up against.
Élodie started wheedling Greg to buy her sweets behind my back. The school frowns on anything like this. She sneaked them into school and began to ply Sophie with them. I don’t suppose any of her classmates had ever experienced the full beam of Élodie’s charm before. It’s a fact that even babies prefer beautiful faces, and Élodie’s looks, combined with her new-found smiles and contraband sweets, made her irresistible to little Sophie, who chose to pair up with Élodie, turning away whenever Thérèse tried to join in. Thérèse’s mother noticed how angry and tearful her placid daughter had become but didn’t know how to tackle it. She hoped it was just a phase that would pass.
This was the point at which Élodie switched. According to another girl in the class, she simply walked up to Thérèse one morning when the bell to line up had been rung, and took her hand instead of Sophie’s. From then on, Thérèse and Élodie were as thick as thieves. Or so we were told afterward. Élodie never mentioned Thérèse at home. There was no change in her whatsoever, despite her apparent discovery of intimate friendship for the first time.
Unfortunately, Sophie didn’t have Thérèse’s pride. While the other girl vented her frustration and sadness at home, Sophie became desperate. She followed the other two around, trailing in their wake, her little face pinched with misery. The teacher intervened and said the three of them must be friends, and this was when the real trouble started.
After some weeks of ignoring Sophie, or holding their noses and saying she stank of shit, Élodie told her that they could all be friends again if she did a dare. Sophie, who had never done so much as talk back to her parents, stole money from her teacher’s purse, scratched bad words into her desk, and broke her lunch plate.
All this was unpleasant but arguably not out of the ordinary for little girls flexing their muscles in the playground for the first time. Perhaps. But then the dares took a darker turn and Thérèse started backing off, taking days off school, telling her mother she had a stomach ache.
On one of the days Thérèse had absented herself, Élodie told Sophie she had to climb up onto the high, flat roof of the dinner block. When she’d done that, Élodie told her to jump off. Ground down by months of bullying, she barely hesitated. She broke both legs, one of them so badly that the jagged tibia pierced the skin.
That was last week. Today, Greg has insisted we take Élodie to the hospital where Sophie lies in traction, to “let them sort this out.” When we get there, the girl takes one look at Élodie, who is approaching armed with chocolates, and begins to tremble violently, her small hands clutching at the bed sheet, her mouth opening and closing in silent terror. She tries to sit up—to back away—the metal traction equipment above her groaning as it resists, and her face blanches with pain.
“Take her out,” I say to Greg, my voice like steel, and for once he doesn’t protest. Neither does Élodie.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper before I follow them out, deep shame and horror making me shake almost as hard as Sophie herself. “I’m so sorry.”