The Girl Who Cried Wolf(28)
‘Some of you seem to think you have means of authority within this classroom that supersedes our school policy and code of conduct.’ To my absolute horror, he was making an obvious point of staring directly at me. I tried my utter hardest to look nonchalant but I felt my cheeks starting to burn and everyone watch me intently. This obviously had the desired effect, because his burning eyes never left me and he was shouting with increased anger. ‘Some of you seem to think it is OK to make someone else feel too afraid to come to my school! What gives you the right to make a person feel that way? Are they different to your perfect self? If I receive the names of these culprits, which I have every intention of doing, I will be forced to punish them. This will result in permanent exclusion, and a blackened mark for ever against their name as a bully.’ A gasp emanates from my captivated audience but his tirade is losing a little of its venom. He shrugs his shoulders as my eyes fill with tears and my peers stare harder.
‘Some of you seem to think you are better than others. But the truth is, and one day everyone will see this, the truth is that some of you are rotten to the core.’
I was literally burning with humiliation. Not shame at this point, just hate for singling me out so obviously, and I hated Maria Stapleton more than you could possibly imagine. She had humiliated me in front of everyone, and I knew they would never forget this.
Of course Maria knew our names and I wondered why she didn’t give them. Maybe she knew it would only make things worse. Things got worse anyway, horribly worse.
For two days it transpired that she would not be coming to school with her assistant. She would be as independent as she was at home, and relying on her cane to guide her around the building, with the teachers offering extra support until a new helper was allocated. One can hardly blame the last one for throwing in the towel; I was surprised she hadn’t left sooner.
This made Maria an easy target, not that anyone dared to say anything to her now. She just sat two rows in front of me, looking like every fibre in her body was tensed, anticipating the inevitable attack. I was still seething but I knew I had to tone it down; I couldn’t go through another face off with the Head like that.
I just wanted the last word, a final laugh at her expense or something to hurt her, like she had hurt me.
The teacher was writing on the whiteboard, her back to us. Everyone else was copying her words, looking down at their books as they scribbled away. This was my chance. I dropped my pen so it rolled down the classroom towards her table. I crept forward and as I knelt down beside her in the pretence of picking it up, I whispered nastily in her ear, ‘It’s such a good thing you’re blind so you can’t see how ugly you really are.’
With a smirk on my face and a few pupils raising their eyebrows at me, I returned to my seat and hummed a little satisfied tune under my breath as I finish the paragraph I was writing. I look up a few moments later to see Maria staring straight ahead and completely motionless, apart from a single tear falling from her pale eyes and making a slow trail down her slender cheek. In that instant I was hit by a crashing tornado of shame, and it has never, ever left me.
The tear from her cheek falls onto the ground that is now the lake. My tears are flowing freely and the water where I am kneeling collects them and carries each one away on the ebbing tide. I have felt her pain, a pain so acute I am overcome once more with guilt I could ever have caused it.
The images disperse and I am relieved to be away from the school and those terrible memories, but I feel so alone in this strange place that appears to be my life after death. The darkness is receding and within moments I feel the presence of a young woman beside me, and without turning to look at her I know it is Maria.
***
During my second year of sixth form I received an email from Tina asking me if I remembered Maria and did I know she had been killed by a drunk driver. I recall staring at the computer screen and being unable to move for a long time.
The feelings of guilt and regret had come flooding back, surpassing them the now irreversible fact that I had never found a way to apologise to Maria during what was left of our school years. She never acknowledged me again after the day I whispered in her ear. She made me feel invisible during a time when she blossomed and even made a few friends. In Year Eleven she started to wear a cool pair of Ray-Bans and would throw her long, chestnut hair over her shoulders, laughing while the boys in our class made exaggerated protests that they should be able to wear shades in class too. She grew tall and slender, and started to wear glossy pink lipstick which was breaking the school rules. One day I asked her if I could borrow some as she applied it expertly to her mouth, but she turned her head and started chatting to Daniel. I remember Tina looking impressed. She had never seen someone dare to snub me, and I scowled gloomily for the rest of the day.
The last time I saw Maria Stapleton she was in the park one summer, with a beautiful golden Labrador in a guide dog harness talking to a young man I supposed was her boyfriend. She must have been almost seventeen and looked so happy, laughing in a carefree manner. I started to walk towards them, thinking maybe now she would listen to me, I wanted to say sorry and unburden myself of this ugly guilt. I wanted to tell her I had never treated anyone like that since I saw her crying, and she would see I had changed.
As I got nearer though, I lost my courage. She had this way of making me feel small and invisible. I paused for a long time but eventually I turned around and walked away from them.