That evening Mum realized we didn’t have any milk. She was busy marking school projects, so she sent me out into the cold. The general store was only five minutes’ walk away, but I complained anyway. I wrapped myself up in a thick navy jacket, and wrapped a light blue scarf around my neck. The sky was cloudless and the temperature had fallen. I walked quickly, my hands in my pockets.
As I approached the shop, I passed a busy Indian restaurant. I cut across the packed car park, watching families walk out, all happy and smiling, and I thought about my dad. Then I saw her – Amy. She was sitting on the low wall that circled the pub, on her own. She had a thin grey hoodie on, and her skin was scarlet in the cold. She didn’t hear me, and jumped when I called out her name.
‘You scared me,’ she complained.
‘Why are you sitting out here?’ I asked. It was freezing – the sort of night when you only went out properly wrapped up, if at all. Yet here was Amy, shivering and sniffing back snot, and occasionally wiping her nose with a sleeve.
‘Just thinking,’ she told me.
Her long hair was packed under a black cap, and she rubbed her hands together to keep them warm. I felt myself growing concerned and didn’t really understand why.
‘Thinking about what, Amy?’
She shrugged, flashed me a quick glance and then looked away. ‘Just stuff,’ she said. ‘You remember when we were eight?’
Her question was so random that I didn’t know what to say. This situation was odd. It felt like something was happening but I didn’t know what.
‘I came to your birthday party – me and Tilly together?’ she added.
‘Oh yeah,’ I said, taking a seat beside her. ‘What about it?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Amy replied. ‘I was just remembering – that’s all. You were always really nice to me. You and Tilly both.’
I nudged her with my shoulder – trying to cheer her up. But my attempt felt inappropriate and it didn’t work anyway. Amy still looked so glum.
‘We were friends,’ I said. ‘Why wouldn’t we be nice to you?’
‘Guess you were, once,’ she replied. ‘Dunno about recently . . .’
‘What about the other day – when I came to see you?’ I asked, feeling a bit miffed. I knew we weren’t close but I’d never ignored Amy or been unkind to her. Tilly had dumped food on someone’s head to stop them bullying Amy. ‘I was trying to help then, but you just shut the door in my face.’
‘I know,’ she said, as two lads rode past on mountain bikes. ‘I’m sorry about that – it was mean.’
I shook my head. Amy might have been acting a bit weird but she wasn’t nasty. If I’d been through her ordeal, I think I’d be feeling the same way. ‘You were angry and upset,’ I replied, hoping she’d realize that I wanted to understand. ‘You’re not mean, Amy. It’s just not you.’
‘Still wasn’t right,’ she said. She was hunched forward, her shoulders raised, and her clothes had a musty odour.
‘So what are you doing here?’ I asked again. I had a sense that something was wrong, but unless Amy told me what that was, I couldn’t help. And I really felt as though she needed help.
‘Just . . . nothing,’ she said. ‘I was bored and I wanted some fresh air.’
I looked at my phone. It was nearly eight p.m. and the shop was about to close. ‘Wait here,’ I told her. ‘I have to grab some milk. You want anything?’
Amy shook her head. But in the shop, I remembered that she loved Mars bars. I bought us one each, and went back to where she was sitting. Behind me, the shopkeeper locked his doors.
Amy hadn’t moved. If anything, she had curled up even more – and she looked very, very cold now.
‘Why don’t you come over to mine?’ I asked her. ‘Mum’d love to see you.’
‘Can’t,’ she said. ‘I have to go.’
‘Well, have this then,’ I replied, handing her the chocolate bar. ‘You like these, yeah?’
She took the Mars and smiled. ‘Love them,’ she said, her eyes showing just a hint of sparkle.
She had plump pink lips, shaped like a Cupid’s bow, and really smooth, olive skin. I wondered why people couldn’t see how lovely she was. Why was her weight the first thing they noticed? Amy was a babe underneath it all.
‘Didn’t you puke on my presents at my eighth birthday party?’ I asked her.
Amy nodded. ‘Yeah – I had too much lemonade!’ she replied. ‘But you didn’t even get angry.’
I smiled. ‘I know – weird, huh?’
‘You went and got kitchen towels,’ Amy continued, ‘and tried to clean me up. That was so cool.’
‘All I did was spread the puke over your face,’ I said, grinning at the memory. ‘Mum had to do it properly.’
‘Yeah – she was always lovely.’
‘She still is,’ I told her. ‘Come on – come round and say hello.’
‘Things change,’ said Amy. ‘You’ve moved on, and I’m not the same any more.’
‘That’s because you’re unhappy,’ I told her.
Amy put the Mars in the pocket of her hooded top and shook her head. The wind began to pick up around us, and I shivered.
‘I’m not unhappy any more,’ she replied. ‘Yeah – I hate the bullying and that, but I don’t care any more – not really. I’ve found something else.’
‘What . . . or who?’
But Amy just shook her head slowly and stared off into the distance. I watched a grey BMW drive past, and recognized the driver. It was Dave. I wondered if he was going to see Mum, and I felt excited – like I was a child again. Dave had never replaced my dad but he’d come close. He’d been there for me – always interested in my life and my friends, pushing me to improve at school. The thought of him and Mum getting back together made me happy. But then I stopped being so stupid. Talk about jumping to conclusions. Dave lived near us – he could have been going anywhere. I had no reason but hope to think that he might be getting back with my mum.
Amy stood up. ‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘Who have you found?’ I asked. ‘You said something similar the other day too.’
Amy shrugged again. ‘Just some friends online,’ she told me. ‘People who understand what I’m going through.’
‘Like a support group or something?’ I asked, hoping it was what she meant. I’d spoken to my mum about Amy’s problems in the past and recalled her suggesting something similar. It was exactly what Amy needed – to be around people who made her feel good and didn’t judge her over something so stupid as weight.
Amy nodded. ‘Yeah – something like that,’ she said. ‘Take care, Lily.’
‘Come and have lunch with me and Tilly tomorrow,’ I told her. ‘Just once?’
Amy half smiled. ‘Let’s see what tomorrow brings,’ she said, walking off.
I watched her for a while before heading in the opposite direction. When I got in, Dave wasn’t there, and my heart sank a little – silly, but true. He and my mum were perfect for each other. If only they could see that too. Disappointed, I went up to my room. I was supposed to be studying – GCSEs were looming like a thunderstorm on the horizon. I had dreams about becoming a lawyer or maybe doing something for a publisher. I loved the idea of getting paid to work on novels. Only it all seemed so far away, the road blocked by a huge mountain called exams. Exams that I had to revise for, if I stood any chance at all.
But Benedict was online, as were Danny and Tilly, so instead of working towards the brighter future I dreamed of, I sat up and messaged them instead, only stopping when my eyes grew sore.
The Spider watches the recording again. He smiles all the way through. Girl #1 is good. Better than he ever imagined. Meeting her had been exciting. Being his real self, out in the actual world, had been exciting. The shock on her face was worth everything. But nothing was more exhilarating than watching the story end . . .
Girl #1 is on screen. She’s in some woods. Her eyes are wide, her mousy hair oily. Eyes rimmed with red, clothes dishevelled, black cap skewed, she looks much older than her fifteen years. She is talking to the camera – reading something the Spider helped her to write. The Spider is filming every word.
‘ . . . understand how it feels,’ she continues. ‘To be ignored and treated like nothing.’
She holds up a picture. A pretty brunette teenager stares out. Her cheeks are sunken, her eyes tired. The headline above tells of tragedy and innocence lost.
‘Well, this,’ she tells her audience. ‘This is Maya Brown. She was nobody until she went. Now she lives for ever. Don’t believe me? Google her name . . .’
She shows more photographs, printed from the Net. Ginny Peters, Bradley Coombs, Tyler Jenkins . . .
‘They were all nobodies, but not any more. This life is so average. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go. Just the same old thing, all the time. Just school and home and town and Facebook. It’s all so regular. One day you’ll wake up, all of you, and it will be over. You won’t ever be famous. You won’t ever be rich. You’ll never have the dream job you wanted. You’ll be middle-aged, with your dreams buried and your energy gone. Not me, though. I’m going to live for ever. You laughed at me, called me names. Now I’m going to look down on you, as you cry at my grave. And I’m gonna have the last laugh . . .’
The Spider feels a surge of adrenalin – of control. He is exhilarated, energized and ecstatic. And he realizes something else too. He is addicted – fixated. He wants more of this feeling – more of this power. He wants to bathe in his dominance – his supremacy over others.
Does God exist – and if so, is this how He feels?