Undone(27)

It was time to wake up. I was going to do exactly what Kai had told me not to do in his first letter. I was going to do whatever it took to find out who filmed him. Then I was going to punish them.

Against my better judgement, my first port of call was Louise. There were two reasons for this: she was the only other person (other than his parents) who cared about him as much as I did; and she was bound to know most of the people who’d been at Max’s party. That was enough to outweigh the fact that I was practically allergic to her.

I texted her on New Year’s Day, not even bothering with the usual pleasantries: Louise, I need to find out who filmed him. You in or not?

No reply. Four hours later I texted: Well? (This wasn’t just me being impatient – I knew for a fact that she was practically surgically attached to her phone, so there was really no excuse for the radio silence.)

Still no reply. One last try the next day: You going to bother replying?

She didn’t bother replying – of course she didn’t. But you can’t say I didn’t try.

My next idea was to talk to Bland Boy A and Bland Girl B. They might have seen something at the party, and at least they would be sympathetic.

I went kohl-less the first day back at school after Christmas; I even trialled some of my new make-up. Nothing much, just a bit of foundation and powder, a dab of lip gloss, a tiny bit of eye pencil. No one said anything, but I was uber-sensitive to any looks I got. I felt exposed. Judged. At least no one could tell I was blushing, I guess.

As it happened, hardly anyone noticed the change. I suppose I just assumed everyone was like me – noticing and commenting on every little thing, whether it be Lucas’s obvious affection for hair products or the length of Amber Sheldon’s skirts. But they deserved to be looked at, analysed, criticized. That was the price they paid for being popular.

I thought Mum was going to burst into tears when she came downstairs at breakfast to find me looking the way I did. She knew better than to mention it, thank Christ. If she’d have said anything I’d have run upstairs and scrubbed off all the new makeup just to spite her. She must have been feeling so proud of herself. Thinking if only she’d known that all it would take to turn me into a normal daughter was shelling out at the make-up counter, she’d have done it years ago. I wasn’t about to tell her what was actually going on . . . mostly because the new look seemed to keep her off my back a bit. I was given more leeway, just because of a bit of hair dye and some chemicals slapped on my face. I’m not exactly sure what this says about my mother, but it can’t be anything good.

I found Jon (Bland Boy A) and Vicky (Bland Girl B) in the cafeteria at lunchtime. They were now a couple (or maybe they’d been a couple since forever and I just hadn’t noticed) and they held hands the entire time I talked to them. The hand-holding irritated me out of all proportion; my eyes kept drifting away from their nondescript faces towards their nondescript hands clutching one another. She seemed to be doing most of the clutching, like she couldn’t bear to let go even if it meant trying to cut through the tough cafeteria meat (also nondescript) with the side of her fork instead of her knife.

They were useless – utterly useless. They’d barely set foot in the house all night, and hadn’t seen or heard anything suspicious (but had the cheek to look at me weirdly when I asked if they had). I wasn’t even back to square one – I’d never left square one in the first place. When I got up to leave the table Jon looked like he was about to say something, but he half shook his head and turned his attention back to the girl. Like I said – useless.

I spent the afternoon lessons kicking myself. As if it was going to be that easy: ‘Well, now that you mention it, Jem, we did happen to see a suspicious character sneaking away from the scene of the crime, rubbing his hands in glee and laughing maniacally.’ I was a f*cking idiot, plain and simple.

It wasn’t until I spotted Max in the chaos after the bell at three thirty that it occurred to me to ask him. Even if he hadn’t known everyone at the party, his brother would be able to help for sure. Unfortunately Max had Louise in tow. She was like one of those sucker fish that attach themselves to a shark to hitch a ride – Max couldn’t shake her off even if he wanted to. I couldn’t help noticing that Louise wasn’t looking any better after the Christmas break. It must have been awful at the McBride house; Kai’d always been into Christmas in a big way.

‘Max! Hey, how’s it going?’ As if I talked to him all the time and it was completely normal for me to enquire after his well-being at any given moment.

‘Hey . . .’ There was this strange missed beat where I thought he was going to say my name but then didn’t. As if he suddenly remembered that I was one of the little people.

I tried to ignore the fact that Louise was hovering behind him, standing way too close, so that if you squinted a little it sort of looked like Max had two heads. ‘Um, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something. About your party . . . the night when . . . ?’

His face was perfectly blank; it was clear he had no idea what I was on about. I was going to have to say the words out loud. Louise faked a yawn, probably not realizing how very ugly it made her look. I tried again. ‘Look, can we go somewhere a bit quieter? I’ll . . . buy you a coffee or something.’

Louise rolled her eyes but (surprisingly) kept her mouth shut. Max ran his hand through his hair and shrugged. ‘Er . . . yeah. Maybe tomorrow? I’ve got training at four.’ He held up his hand so I could see the goggles dangling from his wrist. Swimming. Hence the massive shoulders.