Gordon Reece - Mice

One Thursday night I sat in my bedroom and thought it all through quite matter of factly. Even if, by some miracle, I did summon up the courage to tell on them, I was still convinced it would only make my situation worse; the head would summon them to his study and they’d deny everything. There was no direct evidence against them (no one in my class would dob on them) so it was my word against theirs. Without proof, the head, who was weak and ineffectual, and paranoid about any kind of bad publicity for the school, wouldn’t take any action. If I told on them, they’d be free to persecute me with even greater determination, greater viciousness. It was too late to transfer to a new school with only two terms left before my exams. And besides, even if I did transfer, they knew where I lived.

They could easily wait to ambush me or, even worse, they might decide to bring their campaign of hatred into my home — my home! — the only place where I still felt safe from them. I couldn’t bear the thought of Mum finding some obscenity stuffed through our letterbox. Anything, anything, other than that.

There didn’t seem to be any way out of the miserable existence I found myself living. Or rather, there seemed to be only one.

I planned it all out sitting at my desk, as if it was just another homework assignment. I decided to do it two days later, on the Saturday, when Mum went to do the big weekly shop at the supermarket just outside town. I usually went with her, but this time I would plead a headache. After a great deal of thought, I settled on the best way to do it (the beam in the garage where Dad used to hang his punchbag; the thick belt from my towelling dressing gown) and tore a sheet of paper from an exercise book to write a final message to Mum.

But even though I sat there for more than half an hour, the words just wouldn’t come. I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the bullying, not even in a note, a note she wouldn’t read until after I was dead. I didn’t really understand why I couldn’t confide in her. All I could think was that no matter how close we are to someone else, there are limits, frontiers between us that we just can’t cross, things that touch us so deeply they can’t be shared with anyone else. Maybe , I thought, it’s what we can’t share with others that really defines who we are .

I’d been doodling unconsciously while turning the still-born phrases over in my mind, and when I looked down at the piece of paper I couldn’t help smiling bitterly when I saw what I’d drawn. It was a mouse. And around its neck was tied a thick hangman’s noose.

I knew I was timid; I knew I had a tendency to cry easily — to tremble and lose my voice at the smallest reprimand or sign of aggression. But it had taken the months of bullying for me to understand finally that this was what I was: a mouse, a human mouse . And at the same time, I realized that this drawing was the most eloquent statement I could leave behind me. I folded the sheet over, wrote Mum on it and left it in my top drawer, where it would be easily found.

And that’s how my life would have ended, like the lives of so many other weak little mice before me — hanging from a home-made noose, my feet turning in smaller and smaller circles, my hands twitching spasmodically — if my tormentors hadn’t sprung their cruellest trap the very next day.

That vicious attack, ironically, saved my life.

I remember the attack that could have killed me far less clearly than most of the others.

I’d gone to the girls’ toilets at break as I’d been having really bad period cramps all morning. I thought I heard Teresa and Emma talking, but when I came out of the cubicle there were just some younger girls mucking around by the paper-towel dispenser. I went to wash my hands. The water was cold and I let it run to warm up. I’d just squeezed some turquoise liquid soap into the palm of my hand when I was suddenly grabbed around the neck and jerked violently backwards.

I caught a brief glimpse of Jane’s flushed face and the terrified juniors running away as I was swung round hard into the cubicle door. My forehead cracked against the doorframe and, completely stunned, my head ringing, stars exploding in front of my eyes, I slid on some soggy tissue paper and ended up in a sitting position on the wet floor.

I was aware of Emma and Teresa kneeling close beside me, holding me still, almost as if they were trying to help me. I heard a click-clicking sound close to my face and Emma’s voice say: This is how you cook a pig . Teresa and Jane burst into throaty laughter — and then they were gone.

I sat dazed on the floor for what seemed like a very long time. I dabbed at my nose, which had started to bleed, and felt a strange prickling sensation creeping over my scalp. I was getting unsteadily to my feet when one of the juniors came in and saw me. She let out a piercing horror-movie scream, then turned and ran out again.

Managing to stand upright, I walked slowly, shakily, towards the mirror to clean myself up before the next class. But when I looked for my reflection, I wasn’t there . There was a girl my shape and size wearing the blouse and skirt I’d put on that morning — but she had no face. Instead of a face there was a swirling ball of orange flame.

I still hadn’t recognized the horror in the mirror when Mr Morrison burst in. He came running towards me ( I saw it all in slow motion ), roaring like a soldier charging into battle ( but I couldn’t hear anything ), and tearing off his jacket ( that’s when I knew the girl in the mirror was me ), he held it up like a blanket ( I called out for Mum ) and threw it over my burning head ( but no sound came ).

And then everything went black.

While I was in hospital, Mum found my diary. She was looking for my favourite baby-blue pyjamas when she stumbled on it. She broke the lock open and read everything. Appalled and horrified, she took it straight to my school and showed it to the head teacher.

Mum told me later that the head had ordered the three girls to his office, insisting that Mum stay while he conducted the interview (I could just imagine how she must have squirmed, as reluctant to confront them as I had been). Apparently Teresa, Emma and Jane weren’t the slightest bit intimidated by his summons; to them the head was little more than a joke, an obese, bumbling clown straight out of a third-rate sitcom. Nor were they fazed when they saw Mum. She said they slouched, sniggering and grinning, in their chairs, eyeing her with contempt, all memories of her past hospitality and kindness to them forgotten.

The head read out some of the most damning extracts from my diary and then demanded, ‘Well? What do you have to say about this?’

And they had a lot to say, according to Mum. All shouting out at the same time, they angrily denied bullying me and protested that they’d been nowhere near the girls’ toilets when I was attacked. I could hear their three voices entwining like a cat’s cradle into one: She’s just trying to get us into trouble! She’s a freaking weirdo! It’s all a pack of lies!

This was the only time Mum said she spoke. It pained me to imagine how much it would have cost her. How with red face and trembling lips she’d managed to say: Shelley doesn’t lie .

Emma immediately snapped back at her, ‘If it’s all true, then how come she never told you ?’ And Mum had fallen silent again.

Leaning forward in her chair towards Mum, Teresa said with a barely concealed smirk, ‘Maybe Shelley went into the girls’ loos to have a smoke and had some sort of accident with her lighter. Maybe she’d gone into the toilet to light up , Mrs Rivers.’ Emma and Jane had to cross their legs and bite their cheeks so as not to burst out laughing at her wicked joke.