Madness

Chapter 3

Mrs Vord isn't that bad. Not really. She doesn't give you detentions left right and centre. Not unless you deserve them. So I have one less detention to serve. And Chloe is good at hiding herself away, not attracting attention. So she helps me hide too. And my new tree is finished. So I'm pretty happy. It's annoying matron, so that's a bonus right there. Chloe is helping me design some stuff, but she refuses to get herself covered in mud, so I have to be the one to bring it all in to the room and position it. The extra dirt only annoys matron more.

I put a worm in her bed the other day. That was funny. I filmed it too. Only, matron gave me a weeks detentions. Worth it though. To see the look on her face. Chloe suffered that one right along with me, though all she did was help me wire the camera to the school TV. So that the whole school would see it. Funniest thing I've ever seen.

Chloe is used to our room now. She has an amazing bed (which I take full credit for) and she can climb a lot faster now. Her running ability has greatly improved. She's not even nearly as fast as me, but she's just as fit. She's not built for running though. She's tall. More of a short distance runner. She's constantly making remarks about how small I am (some of them mean), and she's always going on about how much she wants to run as fast as I can. I offered to hit her on the head with a hammer to shrink her slightly, but, for some reason, she didn't seem so keen.

On the down side, the wicked witch of the west is back, and she's as annoying as ever. I don't think anyone likes her. She reminds me slightly of that character from the Tracey Beaker novels: Elaine the Pain. Only, she has a much worse haircut, and she makes Elaine the Pain look like the good fairy. I offered to show her how to climb a tree with a handful of moss. Somehow the moss ended up in her hair. And on her granny cardigan. I can't think why, but she wasn't very happy with me about it. Grumpy old witch. She has no sense of humour.

I do all that I can to be good in class. But I sometimes make a tiny hiccup. Like putting glue on my Geography teacher's seat, or setting up a bucket of custard to fall on my Biology teacher's head. I must be so popular in the staff room.

Benny still annoys me, and she keeps attacking Chloe with a lot of verbal abuse. But Chloe's strong. She won't break. Unless...

It was a few weeks ago, and Miss Jarrod was lecturing us about punctuation. I said my favourite mark was dot dot dot, and the class erupted into laughter, which Miss Jarrod couldn't understand, and Chloe had to be the one that was asked to explain. When she said that it meant having sex, Benny said that Chloe was the reason that the word 'dot' was repeated many times, and Chloe turned around and said that Benny had done it more times than she had. The whole class got a detention, and Chloe was on the roof with Benny.

I was in the courtyard, and I looked up to see Chloe backing away from Benny. I could hear the shouts of laughter and jeering as Benny shouted to me to get ready to catch my ''little friend''. Matron stopped the fight and arguing and sent Chloe down to the courtyard. When she arrived, she was shaking, and she ran straight over to me and hugged me. I don't do hugs, but Chloe needed it. So I took her to Mrs Vord. Where she was looked after for the rest of my detention until I could get her back to the forest. Odd. She's not scared of heights when she's up a tree.

If that happens again, she'll break, and there'll be no way back. Which reminds me. I owe Benny a punch.

So after everything she'd gone through, I was shocked to find her crying after English one Friday. Mrs Vord was sitting with her, and so was her Physics teacher, Mr Rochette.

"What happened? Did you get an A+ in a test?"

Despite everything, she smiled.

"What's wrong with an A+, Vanessa?"

See, this is why I hate Mr Rochette. He insists on calling me Vanessa. And he hates me. Which really doesn't help.

"Just a little joke, sir."

I swung into my tree and watched as Chloe stood to follow me. I let her in my tree now. Sometimes. If she's sad. I would probably let her up if I was sad, but I'm usually very happy and I just ignore people, so I don't know yet. Though I probably would end up with Mrs Deets or Mrs Curtis. Or maybe Mrs Vord. Maybe.

Mrs Vord told Chloe to sit back down. Chloe looked up at me and mouthed something. I'm not sure, but I think she said 'I'll tell you later.'

I didn't see Chloe alone again that day, mainly because I punched Benny and was kept in isolation all day. It's like a mad house, an asylum. Everytime they come to let me out, I would grin my most mad grin and say something else crazy. It was Mrs Vord that got me out, and she didn't ask many questions. Not like Mr Harlod, the idiot who put me in. In fact, she only asked me one.

"Did you punch Benny for any reason, or just because you genuinly don't like her?"

"She upset Chloe, miss. The other day in detention. What I did is called payback."

"I see. Well, Chloe is asleep in there so keep quiet."

I snuck into the room and up my tree.