The Magpie Effect - The Magpie Chronicles Book 1 (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 10.1

Despite my abundance of foretelling 'demon power', as Aunt Vera so suitably named it, I couldn't quite deduce why Monday morning brought with it such a flurry of hushed excitement and stolen corridor glances. Everywhere I looked, people seemed to be either turning to ogle at me or hurrying to whisper in the ears of their friends.

I thought that perhaps I was just being paranoid, but then I came within sight of my locker. There was a throng of people gathered around it. My stomach began to wring itself out like a wet cloth.

I approached with a frown. They were all goggling at something. When someone spotted me, the crowd dispersed as though it were a single all-thinking organism. I picked my way through the mob, felt their eyes press heavily into my skin as I reached my locker.

Everything stopped. My heart, my blood, my brain. Everything.

There was a sheet of paper taped to it, and on that sheet of paper was a horrifyingly familiar photograph. Underneath it, in large bold letters, was the caption "WHO ATE ALL THE SWEETS?"

A torrent of laughter exploded behind me. I turned too fast, the bile rising in my throat. Carmen and her camaraderie marched down the corridor, an unbreakable unit, six girls thick. Carmen, the vicious engine at its centre, flicked her hair at me before vanishing around the corner.

Keep it together, I thought to myself. But it was impossible. At that moment, I didn't want to exist. It wasn't that I wanted to die, in all its finality, but I wanted to vanish. I wanted the sweet release of invisibility, and the blessed burden of its permanence.

Faces shrunk and ballooned around me. Words bounced around my head, sharp-edged and indecipherable. The ground beneath my feet melted away and the air fled from my lungs.

I wasn't keeping it together. I had to get away. I tore away from the locker and set off down the corridor at a near-run. The lockers were covered with paper. How hadn't I noticed them before? They were everywhere.

WHO ATE ALL THE SWEETS?

My own terrified face stared out at me from each and every locker. Wide eyes, the blare of the camera caught in the pupils.

WHO ATE ALL THE SWEETS?

The walls began to turn in grotesque corkscrews. I wasn't panicking; I was panic. I wanted to breath normally again, to feel the cool air flow through my veins, but my dread didn't compromise. It demanded to be met by a complete meltdown.

WHO ATE ALL THE SWEETS?

The tears seared my skin. The sobs choked my throat. I stumbled down the corridor and practically threw myself through the doors to the girls' toilets and walked directly through Mona.

"Whoa, steady there!" she exclaimed, but her smile dropped as she saw the tears running down my cheeks. "Oh, no, you've seen them."

"Seen them?" I shrieked. "Seen them? Everybody has bloody seen them!"

Mona raised her arms. "Saffy, calm down-"

"I can't calm down! Everybody has seen the photograph, don't you understand? Everybody has seen what I look like-"

Mona reached out to grab my wrists, her eyes wide with urgency. I could almost feel her again, a feathery pressure above the cusps of my Atlantic.

"Let's go," Mona said, holding my gaze.

I winced at her. My vision was blurred. "W-what?"

"Let's go," she repeated. "Let's get away from this place, come on."

She made towards the door. "Wait! I can't just leave, Mona. I have classes all day."

"So? Come on, Saffy! Look at how miserable this place is making you! It's not doing anything for you!" Mona put her hands on her hips and pinned me with a fierce glare. "Just once, do what you want to do. Do you really want to stay here?"