Black Poison

15. 'Soda' ?

15. 'Soda' ?

It was amazing how my life had changed. The simplest little things were making me happy; how nice my toast was, how neatly ironed my favourite jumper was, how good a certain TV show was. It was all because of Mollie - but I still couldn't reveal to anyone that the seedlings of a relationship between us had been planted - but there seemed to be no fooling Lily. Two years my senior my sister had always looked after me; put an arm around my shoulder when I was feeling down, and celebrated with me when I was happy. It was fair to say that she knew me inside-out, and she could tell that something was making me exceedingly happy, and she could tell it wasn't that I had got a car for my birthday.

On Monday morning - two days after my visit to Mollie's house - I sat down to breakfast prior to school, and Lily eyed me dubiously from the opposite end of the table.

"So who is it?" She demanded

"Who's what?" I responded

"The girl," she stated simply "I can tell."

Usually I would have been in a dilemma here, as Mollie had told me not to tell anyone, but there was no dilemma with my sister. Lily would understand, I could tell her everything, and she wouldn't reveal a snippet of information, even under strenuous torture. So I began - reluctantly at first - to account everything which had happened between Mollie and I. Once I had started it was easy to keep going; the words just flowing from my mouth.

"I see," Lily smirked when I had finished "I won't be telling anyone then, sounds like you've got yourself a big secret there."

"Yeah," I laughed, then hoisted my schoolbag onto my back as I realised I would be late for school.

"See ya," Lily called after me down the hallway.

"Yeah, bye," I shut the door and stepped out off the driveway and began the torturous trek to school.

Mollie filled my thoughts more than usual during the fifteen-minute walk, and in particular I replayed the conversations over that we had, talking about her eating problems and her mother's illness.

I had lost my usual train of thought, and didn't notice walking straight into Jay outside of school.

"Calm down," he joked

"Sorry, I just was in some sort of day-dream."

"Yeah, that happens to me sometimes, by the way there's a meeting today at lunch, everyone who's going to London."

"Oh right yeah."

"I think Mines wants to talk to you because you still have a British Passport or something?"

"Oh god, yeah, I'll have to sort that out."

"Cool, well I'll see you around."

"Yeah, mate."

I took a black pen from my back and etched MEETING onto my palm; otherwise I was bound to forget. As well as thinking about Mollie I had also been thinking about Megan, I couldn't believe what she had done. As I made it down the school corridor my phone vibrated in my pocket; it was from Mollie.

Not coming in today, will probably kill Megan, don't worry X

Suddenly I realised that this wasn't right, I sent a quick 'ok' back to Mollie, but Megan would have to pay for what she had done, and I had the perfect idea.

It was well known to all that Megan really didn't like school, and whatever opportunity there was to skip a lesson she took it. Endorsed by the school we each had a 'free lesson' once a week, but we had to go to the library and do schoolwork on the computers. The Computer Technician had a list of people who were on their free lesson, and used the master system to make sure they were all on their computers. So people would log on to their school account, and then leave the room, returning to the library at the end to log their account off. Genius from school kids rebelling the system. Except this time I was going to use this to my advantage.

I had the same 'free' as Megan, so when she logged on and then left, I would move onto her computer and seek revenge. The school had a website where students and teachers could all post messages for everyone to see. These were all usually reminders for students to complete homework, or notices from absent staff. Once I was onto Megan's account, I could post in her name, I just had to think of something to post.

As my scheming mind was at work I hadn't been paying attention to most of the morning, sitting through my lessons in auto-pilot. However lunch quickly came around, and I remembered the trip to London meeting. It seemed I was the last one there, pushing into the packed changing rooms where the team were all either sitting or standing. Jay, Matt and Tom had saved a space for me on a bench in the far corner, so I made my way over and squeezed on.

"Want a soda?" Matt held out a can

"What you're holding there is a Coke," I noted "And should be referred to as such, or a 'soft drink' it is not a 'soda'."

"Well it is."

"No it isn't, it's a fizzy drink."

"Do you want it or not then?"

I was actually quite thirsty, so I scowled as I took the drink, as though I had lost this latest British-American war over words.

The meeting was a boring twenty minutes of Mr Mines talking over stuff everyone knew; dates for the flight and accommodation details. I asked about my passport and he said it was fine. At the end we all got a letter to take to our parents, but mine knew all the details anyway.

We grabbed a quick sandwich from the canteen, and then it was time for my free lesson. I shared this with Tom, so I would have to tell him I had some work to do so he would leave me alone. We reached the library and I noted where Megan had sat. I logged on next to Tom, and then told him I had lots of work to catch up on, so he left along with most of the class. Those that remained where the ones who either loved doing work, or hated breaking the rules, so none of them were going to realise what I was doing, or tell anyone.

I casually sat myself in Megan's chair, and brought up the school site that she was already logged into. I clicked Create New Announcement then typed out my message. I admired my handiwork for a few minutes, and then tentatively hovered over the Send button. Eventually I clicked on the mouse, and the message was posted online.

Just wait until she saw that.