I WAKE IN the dead of night to a blood-curdling scream.
There’s a trill to it, a certain high-pitched vibrato that could only be produced by the specific anatomy of a coloratura soprano’s throat.
I sit up and stare terrified into the blackness.
‘Lou-Anne!’
She screams again and the windows vibrate.
I see a ghost-like flash of white hair at the dorm room door before it slams shut.
Indu turns on her lamp and Bindi and I get out of bed and rush to Lou-Anne’s bedside. She’s crying and has her hand clamped over her nose.
‘Something just bit my lip!’ she sobs. ‘A spider!’
‘Omigawd! A spider!’ Bindi echoes hysterically.
Indu pulls Lou-Anne’s hand away from her lip as I turn on Lou-Anne’s lamp.
‘Your whole upper lip’s covered in tiny red dots,’ proclaims Indu. ‘It’s some kind of rash!’
‘Yeah, from a spider bite,’ says Lou-Anne. ‘A bloody funnel web!’
I look down at the floor to see whether there’s a rogue spider crawling around and that’s when I realise that there’s a rectangular piece of plastic stuck to the sole of my foot. I rip it off and hold it to the lamplight.
‘That was no spider!’ I announce. ‘This is a wax strip with Lou-Anne’s hair stuck to it!’
Everyone leans in for a closer look at Lou-Anne’s bow of short, black hairs that were, a minute ago, attached to her upper lip.
‘Omigawd!’ shrieks Bindi. ‘They took your moustache!’
‘I don’t have a moustache,’ sobs Lou-Anne.
‘Not anymore,’ I mutter.
‘But who?’ cries Indu. ‘Who would do such a thing?’
‘I know who,’ I say, scowling as I recall the whitish blonde hair that whipped around the corner in the second after Lou-Anne’s scream rent the air.
I storm into the hallway, ready to rip someone into pieces. That someone is standing across the landing right in front of Keli’s room. She looks back at me over her shoulder and then disappears into the dimly lit room. The lights go off. Raucous giggles ensue.
‘Did you do it? Did you do it?’
Now I understand. Olivia just tore off Lou-Anne’s moustache to impress Keli Street-Hughes and her cabal of scrubchooks.
‘Where’s the moustache? What did you do with it? We could stuff a doona!’
More giggles. How dare they! As my hand, trembling with rage, reaches for the doorknob, a larger, more solid hand descends on my shoulder.
‘Shauna, don’t do it.’
It’s Lou-Anne, with tears in her eyes. I can see her ravaged upper lip glowing red in the dim light of the hallway.
‘I can’t let them get away with that!’
‘You’ll be the one who gets into trouble. So just leave it.’
‘It was that little shit, Olivia Pike,’ I tell her, loudly enough to be heard on the other side of Keli Street-Hughes’s door.
‘Leave it, Shauna.’
I want so badly to stomp into that room, throw on the lights and bawl those girls out until I’m hoarse, but Lou-Anne takes me by the elbow. I have to respect her wishes, I know.
We all get back into bed, and after a few minutes of whispered outrage and the application of some vitamin E oil, the room falls silent. But my mind is far from silent. I stew so badly that Lou-Anne tells me to stop stewing.
‘I can’t fall asleep to the sound of angry sighing, Shauna.’
‘How’s your lip?’
‘Bald.’ A few seconds later she adds, ‘Sore.’ Then I hear some sniffles that could be crying, but I know when and when not to make a fuss of Lou-Anne. She’s embarrassed, so I leave her alone.
Eventually everyone else falls asleep, but I remain very much awake. I am so angry that I could burn down the scrubchooks’ henhouse. How could Olivia do that to Lou-Anne? Lou-Anne, who’s never hurt a fly. Lou-Anne, who never says anything nasty about anyone. Lou-Anne, who defends Olivia when I say mean things about her.
I toss and turn, ruminating. Then, at around three in the morning I get out of bed, open my pencil case and withdraw my scissors. They are in fact my mother’s former sewing scissors and they can make it through just about anything. Diamonds, probably.
Silently, I slide like a serpent from beneath my doona, out of the dorm room and into the hallway. I cross the foyer and sneak into the darkness. I go all the way down the end to the bad real estate, where the younger girls sleep, and with ever-so-quiet tippy-toed steps, slip into her room. It’s obvious Mr Tizic keeps the hinges very well oiled, because not the slightest scritch disturbs the air as I push the door open. All the Year 8 boarders are asleep. Two of them are snoring loudly. I go to Olivia’s bed. She’s lying on her back with her blonde hair fanned out on her pillow. Ever so gently, I lift a thick lock of hair – about a third of it – from the crown of her head and swiftly lop it off, close to the scalp. She puts her hand to her forehead, mutters something and rolls over, without waking up.
It’s revenge enough that Olivia will look in the mirror in the morning and see Friar Tuck, but I decide that some finishing touches are necessary. So I also sneak into Keli’s room and sprinkle Olivia’s fine hair all over her bed. It’s like the horse’s head in the bed in the Godfather movie. Keli’s going to wake up screaming. They both will.
‘Some pretty strange things happened in the boarding house overnight,’ snaps Miss Maroney the next morning. She’s called a special meeting in the dining room after breakfast. ‘If the girls responsible for this nonsense don’t come forward before the first bell rings, I’m giving every single one of you a Red Mark.’
There’s a flurry of furtive glances. I look at Olivia. Olivia looks at Keli. Keli looks at Lou-Anne. Lou-Anne looks at me. Whether four pairs of darting eyes attract Miss Maroney’s attention or not is unclear. The bell rings.
‘One Red Mark to each of you!’ she roars.
One of the Year 7 girls bursts into tears.
Welcome to justice, Oakholme-style.