3.

The victimisation of Biddy was great sport for Alison and her cronies. Alison quickly realised that she could always get a laugh by throwing some new and clever insult at ‘Bloody Weirdo’, and as long as her bait was around, she would always have a captive audience. She could never have imagined that such a smelly, ugly, weird little girl would ever be useful to her in any way whatsoever. There had been a couple of unattractive oddities at her last school, but she had mostly just ignored them – unless of course, they ever got in her way. Her aggression towards Selina Burton had been based on the unfathomable comment from Selina that she was in fact the prettier of the two. Alison had been so shocked by this assumption, so completely shaken to the core by it, that for days she could barely eat or sleep. At school, she became obsessed by Selina’s appearance. Her sea-blue eyes, fair skin and long, pale blonde hair began to really irk Alison. Particularly Selina’s hair, which was at least four inches longer than her own. Selina could actually sit on hers. Alison realised that she had to do something about it all. So, she became Selina’s best friend.

For a while, Selina and Alison did everything together. They linked arms in the playground, they went to each other’s house for tea (which made Alison resent her new best friend even more, as she realised that Selina’s parents were much wealthier than her own), and they even started riding lessons together. Then, one Saturday night, when Selina’s parents were at a dinner dance in a big fancy hotel somewhere in the countryside, Selina was allowed to sleep over at Alison’s house rather than stay at her grandparents as she usually did. They had so much fun. Alison’s father brought in Hawaiian burgers from their local takeaway for dinner. They listened to music on Alison’s portable record player, they ate sweets and popcorn in her bedroom, they dressed up in some of Alison’s mother’s clothes, and best of all, they played at makeovers. Selina made over Alison first, applying subtle make-up, and twisting her hair into a sophisticated chignon bun: she really was very good. You could see that she got her sense of style from her mother, who had once been a well-known model. Then it was Alison’s turn. She did the make-up first, taking her time, telling Selina all the while how wonderful she looked. When she was done, she took a hairbrush and began to brush out Selina’s long, glorious mane. Then she gathered it on top of her friend’s head and tied a band around it. ‘Ohh, I’ve had an idea. I know just the style for you, you’ll love it,’ Alison sang and clapped her hands with glee. ‘But no peeking, not until it’s done.’ So Selina screwed her eyes tightly shut and didn’t even think to peep, which was a shame, as then she might have seen Alison picking up her mother’s kitchen scissors. Luckily for Alison, Selina’s hair was very fine, enabling her to cut through the ponytail in almost one go. By the time Selina realised what was happening, it was too late. The damage was done. Alison had achieved her goal with spectacular success, as Selina’s hair was well and truly ruined. Even the best, most expensive hairdresser in the city, to whom Selina’s mother brought her at 9 a.m. the following Monday morning, couldn’t do much to help. The damage was so catastrophic that even a ‘Purdy’ style was out of the question.

After that, Alison was, most definitely, the prettiest girl in the class. Or at least, the girl with the longest, most glossy hair. Soon she would even be able to sit on it. However, she hadn’t thought through the repercussions. She hadn’t considered that Selina, once she got over the shock, would actually benefit from having had all her hair cut off: she hadn’t at all prepared herself for the reactions of the other girls in class, who now thought she was an utter cow and sided with Selina, oohing and aahing and petting over her when she returned to school. Alison was sure that they had only taken Selina’s side because a few days after she lost most of her hair, her parents had bought her a pony to compensate for the ‘accident’. That weekend Selina had invited over all the girls in the class to ride on Pippa, and then go to Pizza Pappa’s for tea afterwards. All except Alison, that is.

So the level of popularity that Biddy Weir had inadvertently brought Alison at her new school was especially gratifying. She would lie in bed at night, scheming up new and brilliant ways of humiliating the Weirdo. But, having learnt from her past mistakes, Alison was clever enough not to actually perpetrate most of the misdemeanours herself. She recognised the value of delegation, and, as her gaggle of admirers were all so eager to please, it was never difficult to allocate Bloody Weirdo assignments. Tripping Biddy up in the playground, shoving her out of the line-up at assembly, hiding her clothes at P.E., cutting holes in her string schoolbag, sticking chewing gum onto the soles of her shoes, tearing her exercise books, spilling water over her finished artwork, planting ‘stolen’ apples or biscuits or packets of missing chalk in her desk. There were numerous little ways to keep the day-to-day harassment of Biddy Weir on a constant, steady roll.

 

Biddy quickly became accustomed to this relentless persecution. She hated it, of course, but after every episode, she carried on as though nothing had happened. When the teachers reprimanded her for being clumsy or forgetful or disruptive or punished her for whatever bad behaviour the others caused her to be accused of, she never protested her innocence. She instinctively knew that to do so would make it all so much worse, and so she just carried on whispering apologies for things that weren’t her fault.

‘Yes, Sir.’ ‘Sorry, Miss.’ ‘No, Sir.’ ‘I’ll try, Miss.’

This was about the full extent of Biddy’s interaction with the teachers at Prospect Park. It was evident the girl didn’t have any friends, and now and then, one or two of them did get a vague notion that something wasn’t right, but, as they didn’t have any particular empathy with Biddy Weir, and as no complaint had ever been made by the girl or her father, they let it lie. Best not to get involved. God only knows what kind of a can of worms they might be in danger of opening. And none of them would ever have suspected that Alison Flemming, who had quickly established herself as a prize-winning pupil and a star of the school, was behind it all.

So, every day Biddy would go home with that big lump still in her throat and a knot of nausea in her stomach, and tell her father that yes, she had had a good day at school and no, nothing unusual had happened. Same old, same old. Then she would go to her bedroom and cry into her pillow and when the crying was done, she would sit on her chair by her dressing table and stare into the mirror. She grew to hate the person who glared back: the ugly, weak, pathetic, vile little girl. ‘Bloody Weirdo,’ she would hiss at her reflection, before going downstairs to do her homework. By the time she was eleven, Biddy was filled with as much self-loathing as Alison was with self-love.