Double Exposure [2]

Let your enemies beware the caw Of crow, chough, jackdaw, rook and raven, Lest it be a signal to smite them With a hatred most deeply graven. From the "Book of Ancient Laments", Ch. 6 vers. 7 St Sophia Augustine was one of the country's premium boarding school for girls. Premium with a capital P, as the writing emblazoned on the large plaque on her main gates was all too ready to tell you. Her foundations were made from quarried yorkstone, and she was fenced with Edwardian wrought iron. It cast an imposing figure over the county of North Yorkshire, but her large school bell, sitting high in a reformed church tower, cast the most imposing figure of all. Three times a day without fail, for morning, noon and eveningtide mass, the deep boom of her bell would begin a solemn peal of bronze, calling the gathered students below to judgement. Beckoning to saint and sinner alike, it was far from just any old school bell. It was a handmade, engraven tenor bell that had rang out over the bustling courtyard of St. Sophia for more than a hundred years. It always had the last word, and had yet to meet its match. Every morning it would pierce the silent air with its deafening beat, helping to quieten the stifled murmurs of the uniformed girls, who, as in every semester before this one, in centuries past and present, flocked in unison to fill the gravelled quad in ordered, military lines. To Hannah Harrison, one of St. Sophia's most rebellious students, the first day back at boarding school always felt like the end of days. It seemed, to her at least, that the scene which would stretch out before her on every first morning of a new school year never failed to look like one from the Book of Revelations, an inevitable and unforgiving Biblical parody of souls lined up with a mindless obedience she could never quite fathom. This particular morning, however, somewhere from the bell tower's open, baffle-boarded window, a solitary raven flew out, angrily, as if awoken from its morning slumber to shatter that reflection. It cawed irritably in the punctuating silences, marking its reluctant departure, wings rustling through the cold courtyard air as the ever increasing distance the offended bird put between itself and the offending bell quickly turned it into a black speck of dust against the icy blue tabletop of sky. Hannah watched the raven fly away, and her lips curved up at the edges in a knowing smile. To others this would have been a portent of doom, but she felt as though she had been given a sign, and one of good fortune. This term was going to be different. She could just feel it, deep in the very marrow of her bones. "The old bitches are going to just die when they see this," she said, holding up her rucksack to her friend Victoria. The words 'Fuck Trump' adorned the bag, under a graphic depiction of the man himself, bent over and exposed, with a leather clad dominatrix raising a whip to his behind. Not as subtle or as provocative as a Banksy, she thought, and I should have added a strap-on, but it had taken almost a whole bottle of Dior to do, painting it on the night before with her favourite glittering green nail varnish. If that wasn't sacrificing for political activism, then she didn't know what was. "Should that not say 'Fuck BoJo'? We're English not American," Victoria said, after close inspection. "I mean that could be Boris Johnson." "Do you know, I never realised how they look so much alike? But nah, who's going to remember who BoJo is after he's knocked off the prime minister's slate? But Trump is like Hitler. Trump's forever, babe." "Remind me not to hire you as my PR agent when I write my twelve bestsellers." "You couldn't afford me, bitch," Hannah responded jovially. Readying herself to enter the fray, she positioned her school rucksack further up her back. She wanted everyone to get a good look at her artwork. "Fucking Christ, this is worse than conversion therapy camp. All this rigmarole just to be counted for class." "Rigmarole? Nice word. I like it. You been swallowing a dictionary?" "My word of the week, bitch. Doesn't hurt to fill up on the vocab when you got a know-it-all friend like you." Victoria gave her a playful shove. "So what would you suggest as an alternative?" "For rigmarole? How about hoopla?" "For registration, bitch." "Well seeing as you asked so nicely, babe, there should be a school app, obviously. We should all just get notifications on our phone to get to registration." "Isn't an app just swapping one thing for another? We'd still have to line up and be counted like good little girls, bell or no bell." "It's an upgrade. They could count us all remotely, and for all I fucking care they could digitally track me with a pussy plug and vibrate me for the pleasure." "Whoa there, horsey," Victoria frowned, unwilling to mentally follow where Hannah was about to go, as usual. "Too much information." "Anything's got to be better than this. Back to school and how some things never change. We're being herded like cattle to the slaughter for another year," she said, grimly pushing girls out of the way and cutting through lines. Victoria followed on from behind, disapprovingly, but her eyes glinted. "Like lambs you mean..." "You've seen some of the newbies? I meant cattle," she snorted. "Uh-oh, and talking about cattle and the necessities of getting a firmware upgrade..." She stopped, and turned around to nudge her friend on the arm, unable to contain her disgust. "But whom do I see, with her two groupies? Just look at her, for the love of Christ. What bullshit is she whispering now?" They scanned the three girls huddled by the school's imposing nineteenth century reception doorway, standing first in their lines, and heads covertly bowed together. The tallest one in the middle and the head of the Hydra, Ingrid, was flanked by the other two, Ophelia and Tiffany. "You see her? Because you can't help but see the two fat cows with her." Victoria gave a curt nod, saying nothing, but that nothing spoke volumes to Hannah. The sudden change in her friend was slight, almost undetectable, like a one degree drop in temperature, but nevertheless she could feel the hurt emanating off her. The intense dislike she already had for Ingrid and her two main conspirators, doubled. From a distance they looked harmless enough, but Hannah suspected almost every junior girl had been bitten by those three. Each was a psychotic fantasist at heart, and it was a heart filled with venom, because each in turn was the very definition of a snake in the grass. If so inclined, without warning they would sink their poisonous fangs into your back, before cowardly slinking away to hide under their prefect badges for cover. "And didn't I just say cattle? No, no, wait. Bovine are beauties next to those two. I mean warthogs." With a critical gaze, she looked them up and down. And side to side. Yeah, she thought with a sombre satisfaction, these two are ugly inside and out, and only as substantial as their subcutaneous fat. She really wasn't exaggerating for her friend's benefit; there was just one way Ingrid's two wingmates were going to get through those main doors, and that was going to be if they waddled through sideways. And that was going to be a close call. She imagined them getting stuck in the two hundred year old stone door frame, and said in an almost pitying tone, "Human skin must have a limit before it bursts, surely. They look worse than ever this term. Is it possible they've got fatter? All they must've done is eat and gossip all summer." "You said it," Victoria agreed, finally finding her voice past the lump in her throat, and casting a scrutinizing eye. "They feed off lies and slander, and Ingrid has stocked up enough of it to sustain the entire school." Hannah nodded, considering the head of the school Hydra again for a good, long moment. If knowledge was power, then its currency at St Sophia's was gossip, and Ingrid knew how to ruthlessly accumulate it, not just for her own machinations, but for the blessings of the nuns, too. She was a snitch for the Order of the Sisters at St. Sophia's, the eyes and ears of the old bitches council, and with a network of blackmailed spies to do her dirty work for her, it was with good reason that the whole school was afraid of her. And in more ways than one. For Ingrid was the fount of all school shenanigans, real and imagined, and what dirt she couldn't dig up about you, she would just make up. No one would confront her out of fear of being the next target. Every one kept out of her way. Or gathered intelligence for her. Or both. Not me, Hannah thought. I'm not scared of that blackballing bitch. She had been itching to slap her senseless ever since the wannabe Nazi had begun spreading rumours about Vicky during the school's presidential campaign last year. She felt partly to blame; being her friend couldn't have helped matters. Her glare continued its laser-like focus towards the head of the lines. "She's pretending not to see us. Surprise-fucking-surprise. Fraulein Fuckface only has the courage to take a stab at you when your back is turned." At that moment, just as a three-headed swamp monster might do when it sensed you were in their sights, all three prefects turned to look at Hannah with a singular expression of disgust, followed by a sense of disbelief when the victim caught in their snare refused to look the other way. Then after a split-second Ingrid broke rank; she closed her eyes, scrunched up her nose, and began making smooching noises at Ophelia, who started to chuckle loudly. Tiffany raised a hand to her own mouth, making a grand show of poorly stifling her merriment, small dark eyes squinting behind thick horn-rimmed glasses. The trio continued their conspiratorial cackle, returning to theatrically huddle closer together. It was a poor dramatisation of a Shakespearean cauldron of crones, but Hannah bristled. How she bristled. They were stirring up some future trouble and she could bet it would be directed at them. From the reception doors, Ingrid's laughter rose in the air to reach her ears. Her rage grew, and blossomed. If Ingrid and her hellspawn were still gunning for Vicky, especially because of Vicky's association with her, then there would be no reprieve for either of them for the rest of the year. There was no stopping these insidious psychos once they had it in for you. They were relentless, as many victims had discovered to their detriment. Unless... Hannah had a sudden epiphany. She saw the raven in her mind's eye, in a defiant caw against the ringing of the bell, and remembered an ancient lament about smiting one's enemies, and knew what she had to do. She had to be the one to make an example of them. Otherwise this was never going to end. Strike first, and strike hard. She remembered the self-defence course she had taken over the summer break, and it was going to come in useful now, although she shuddered to think what it was going to do to her nails. And she also knew a term long detention would probably be another end result, which at St. Sophia's meant solitary confinement with no social media for three months. But it was worth getting cut off from civilisation, she resolved herself to thinking, just to see Fraulein Fuckface get her comeuppance. "If you make a scene now it'll only make things worse," Victoria said, reading her correctly. "Any worse than what they put you through? Karma is coming today to kick that cow, no matter the cost. And it comes in the form of my foot. Or my fist. Take your pick." Victoria turned to face Hannah, blocking her view of the reception doors. "I choose letting it go. Is that an option?" Hannah looked at her friend in surprise, and couldn't believe she was being serious, but before she could say anything, Ingrid's distant laughter interrupted louder this time, as if on cue to taunt her. It was the only push she needed; that and to remind herself of what Vicky had to endure last term. She shouted over the school bell, determined this time it wouldn't have the last word, "Oi you, psychotic motor mouth. Looks like you've got some new fantasies. Want to share it with the rest of us?" Ingrid ignored Hannah's outburst as though she had difficulty in hearing her, but made a twirling motion with her finger at the side of her head to her friends. The bitch is ga-ga, it said. I'm going to snap that bitch's finger off and stick it sideways up her petrified pussy, Hannah thought, warming herself up to an Old Testament theme of retribution. An eye for an eye. A finger for a finger. Victoria shook her head. "You're better than this. You're better than them." Hannah's stance remained prepared for an inevitable war. "Look, we tried it your way last term, didn't we? So I'm only doing what I should have done then, because if I don't stand up to them now, we better get used to kneeling down to them all this year. You want that? I sure don't," she said. "If you do, then you're going to start something the school will have to finish." "They're the ones that started it, remember?" She said in frustration, "I'm just about to finish it. Just a few solid taps to the side of her thick head and then I'll give zero fucks. The school can sit back and watch." "That's just what they are doing." The nuns had indeed gathered to watch, converging like ravens themselves in the school's eastern covent garden, appearing as if from out of the sky, black cloaks rustling in the cold air, but silent, with stern faces immutable as stone. They were not there to caw, but to watch and to listen. When they looked like this, it was hard not to think that a covent was just one letter longer than a coven. "And all they are waiting for is an excuse to throw you out. Is it really worth getting expelled over?" "The old bitches wouldn't dare. Daddykins will bribe them with a new West wing or something. It's what he does best. Or maybe he can upgrade their stupid church bell." As she spoke, she mimicked the ape-like swagger an elder brother used at home; shoulders pushed back, neck flared forward, arms out to the side, and in her attempt, she was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was doing a really bad imitation of a clucking chicken. "Cluck, cluck," Victoria said, reading her mind, and hoping to lighten a tension that had also been brewing between them over the summer break. Hannah relaxed her stance, despite herself. "I know, right?" Why had Hannah not seen it before? Trying to channel her brother to induce fear in Vicky's antagonists had brought with it tangent images of him in one of his usual rages. Unwelcome as his intrusion always was on her current thoughts, it also brought with it, its own epiphany. How could someone who looked so riduculous have power over her? Whenever he tried to bully her from now on, she would think of him as a chicken. The beginnings of a grin began to twitch to life at the corners of her mouth. It probably gave her a maniacal look, she thought. Good. Let it. "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" "And why not?" "And what will this achieve, do you think?" "Peace in our time, babe. I'm opening up dialogue, just in a language they understand," she said, making a move towards the front lines. Victoria placed a hand on her arm. Hannah stopped, and pushing down her friend's hand and her frustration one last time, said, "It's worth it to me. Okay?" "They're not worth it, then." "No, but you are." "Stop it. I never asked you to fight my battles. I never asked for any of this." Hannah looked incredulous. "Never asked me? When does a friend have to ask? If that's what we are?" "Please, I just can't. I'm sorry," Victoria whispered, looking ashamed. "Fight them with me, Vicky. Together. Let's fucking show them all." "Don't ask me to do something I can't. Please." Hannah couldn't believe that her friend was going to let her go alone, but with a quiet, resigned sigh, she handed her bag over without looking her in the face. "It's okay. I don't get it, but it's okay. Just stay out of the way and hold this for me, if you like." Unable to accept the futility of trying to hold Hannah back, Victoria took the outstretched bag, and clutching it to her chest like a totem, took a small, tentative step forward. "Just stay here with me. You said enough. They won't bother with us again. Please." "It's too late for your way now, Vicky. I'm not ashamed of anything I've done and they won't stop unless someone stops them. Beside my audience awaits. I don't want to disappoint them. One disappointment for today is enough. See? Even the lowly cattle agree with me." A nearby group of students parted before Hannah like the Red Sea before Moses, and it gave the impression that the whole school was giving her its implicit support. This was her cue. Energised, she said in a raised voice, "We need to crush this three-headed snake before it can take another swipe at us. At any of us. You hear that, Ingrid?" Suddenly, as if in response, the tower's ringing chamber ceased its knell, and across the school quad, a blanket of silence draped itself over the uniformed girls, their neat, orderly lines broken as they huddled in anticipation to listen. Hannah thought of the raven again, while she cupped her hands to her mouth like a megaphone, and roared into the air, "What nothing to say? Or do you only do your lying and gossiping behind our backs? No guts to say it to someone's face? Well, it's about time someone had the guts to say to your face that this ends. Here and now." That last sentence rippled across the yard. It seemed as if all the world and St. Sophia had been waiting with bated breath for this moment. The terrible events from last term had now set the stage for an impromptu reckoning. The sea of heads began to move; a few nodded, some applauded, two or three voices, right at the back of the crowd, began to cheer. The nuns, unmoving, kept watch, but the change in mood was palpable: It had been a long time in coming, but it was going to be worth the wait. Finally, Hannah said to herself, these bitches are going to get what's coming to them. She was about to give the performance of a lifetime. It ends here and now. Realising there was going to be a very public confrontation, and one they might lose, Tiffany appeared to be the most terrified out of the three. She looked like she wished she could crawl under the giant flagstones of the yard. She pushed her horn-rimmed glasses further up her nose, as a reminder, almost, that it was unfair to hit a girl with bad eyesight, while her feet started to fidget, as though she'd just in that second decided she had better things to do. Hannah gave her an unpitying look. Tiffany had tried to suck up to them last year, but they hadn't been fooled by it, so the four-eyed warthog had gone back to the other pig in Ingrid's pen. That was when things had gotten worse. But it was Ingrid that Hannah was focused on; Ingrid, the one who had started this all because of her hatred of what Hannah represented. Ingrid, who had kept up the pretence of not hearing throughout. But this time she made it look as though she was purposely ignoring her by making a slow search for something in her bag. She took out what appeared to be a smartphone. Ingrid looked up at her with a sly smile, tapping the phone into her palm. Hannah recognised the veiled threat for what it was, but it had the opposite effect, working to strengthen her resolve, rather than weaken it. More determined than ever, she faced the parted sea of the schoolyard and pushing all other thoughts aside, began her walk over alone. The divide that had opened up to let her pass, opened up further as she walked through it, allowing a wide enough berth as was possible for the approaching fight. Ophelia was the first to try and intercede Hannah's approach for the benefit of the watching crowd. "Look you lesbian bitch, go back in your hole and finger your friend, why don't you?" Hannah paused mid-step, raised her eyes and head to the heavens, and let out a small, white cloud of breath into the chilly air. It made a phantom sigh of relief, and with half a smile, she muttered to no one in particlar, or possibly to the long gone raven, "Here we go." Louder she said, "What was that you said you warthog?" That illicited a few laughs from the crowd. "I said go hide in a fucking corner and finger each other-" but before Ophelia could finish her reprise, Hannah had made it over to where she stood. "Thanks for the advice. Can I borrow one of yours?" She said it calmly, grabbing one of Ophelia's thick digits and bending it as far back as it would go. Ophelia squeaked in pain, "Let go! Let go-" "Say you're sorry," Hannah interjected, taking a hold of Ophelia's arm with her other hand to give it a Jujitsu twist. "Say it." "Fuck you," Ophelia sobbed. She struggled to free herself, but found herself losing her footing. "What the-" Hannah shifted her stance with the twist, and watched in delight as Ophelia's knees buckled, her large frame dropping to the floor like dead weight. A very large dead weight. She mouthed a thank you to her mixed martial arts instructor. Her classes were finally paying off. She gave Ophelia's arm another hard twist to keep her on the ground. "Not until I hear you say you're sorry. Until you all say it." "And what are we going to apologise for exactly?" Ingrid asked, finally stepping forward, a thinly disguised tone of disgust in her voice. "This?" She raised her smartphone into the air; it was the one that Hannah had seen her pluck out from her bag. A video was playing on its screen of two girls sharing an intimate moment, neither aware that they were being recorded. Hannah recognised Vicky and herself on the recording; it was the same video that had done the rounds last year during the school elections after someone had posted it online. Guess who. She let go of Ophelia, and smacked the phone out of Ingrid's hand. She stamped on it from where it fell, bringing her heel down on it as hard as she could. "No, you pervert. You need to apologise for not minding your own fucking business." She stamped on the phone a second time, and gleefully watched its screen crack under the pressure of her foot and turn black. "Now, where were we?" Ingrid's eyes narrowed. "You will pay for that," she said. "Not before you do, bitch." Hannah grabbed Ingrid by the neck. "I. Want. To. Hear. You. Say. Sorry." On each emphasis of each word, she shook Ingrid as though she were a ragdoll. "G-g-gahhh," was all Ingrid could say. Hannah's hold on Ingrid's neck tightened. "G-g-gahhh," Ingrid croaked. "Come on say it. Say it." Hannah's hand went to and fro, as Ingrid's head slapped back and forth. "G-g-gahhhahhh!" "Say it, bitch. Say it. Or maybe if I squeeze a little tighter it will loosen your tongue." But so intent was Hannah on metering out Ingrid's punishment that she was oblivious to Tiffany, who had mustered enough courage to help Ophelia back up on her feet. It was only when Ophelia shoved Hannah from behind that she was roused to the fact the element of surprise had shifted in their favour. She released her grip on Ingrid's neck, who immediately gave a gasp of relief and moved out of her reach. Hannah clenched a fist and swung for Ophelia, but before it could impact, Tiffany grabbed Hannah's hair from behind to pull her head back, exposing her windpipe to Ophelia, who chopped at it with the side of her hand. Hannah fell to the ground in shock. The crowd began to hiss and boo. The wide berth they had given before began to narrow; they moved in closer. Meanwhile, a dazed but defiant Hannah was about to summon her last ounce of strength to kick out at Ophelia, when something happened to stop her. She saw her bag come flying through the air, and in a surreal moment, spied the creased-up words "Fuck rump" on its casing, as it managed to do just that by landing on Ophelia's backside and knocking her to the ground. The boos were replaced by a resounding cheer. "Shut up! All of you!" Ingrid had found her voice, furious at how events were unfolding. The nuns had disappeared and were no longer watching. She had lost control. Still holding her throat, she walked over to Hannah and looking down at her, hissed, "Why don't you just fuck off and die?" "You first, bitch," Victoria said, making a sudden appearance through the crowd. Surprised at her arrival, Ingrid took a few paces back, before quickly turning on her heels and running to the reception doors. Ophelia and Tiffany followed suit, making it to the main entrance first, and both getting stuck in the doorway, blocking any escape. The cheers were replaced by laughter. Unable to stand, but with a breathless grin, Hannah said, "Well don't just stand there, bitch. Help a friend up." "I'm sorry. You okay?" "I am now." She took Victoria's offered hand and got to her feet, slowly. "That was a good throw, but you sure took your sweet fucking time about it, though," she said, brushing herself off, and trying to ignore the state of her nails. "Friends?" Victoria asked. "No," Hannah shook her head, smiling, her heart beginning to caw as though a thousand ravens had taken flight in her. "More than just friends."

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