The Other Me

Chapter Nine

Chapter 9

“We are so fucked,” Rosaline groaned; her face in her hands. We were back inside my bedroom, having just sneaked past my mother downstairs. Rosaline had known straight away that Mrs Barratt had followed me; as she had seen her run after me in the garden from a shadowy tree and apparently she had given up and retreated inside after a few steps.

I was curled up inside my bed in my comforting pyjamas’, still waiting for Rosaline to explode on me, waiting for her to scream at me for being so stupid, how I had risked her life, Nat’s life, my life and thirty other students.  But strangely she was ever so quiet.

“I’m so sorry Rosaline,” I whimpered, deciding to beg for her forgiveness now rather than later. “I know, I am such an idiot. I know you blame me and I know I’ve made this harder-“

“I don’t blame you,” she sighed defiantly. I blinked at her in surprise. Was this the same Rosaline?

“It was my fault really,” she continued. “We should have waited longer to check that they wouldn’t come back. And I shouldn’t have made you come with me. You hate this stuff and I know you were so afraid. Of course you made a mistake.” Rosaline softly stared into my eyes and for the first time I saw something there. They were caring.

“No,” I found myself saying. “No, it was totally my fault. I’m the idiot. I’m the one the police will be after…”

“Oh God.” Her face was back in her hands again. “How are we going to get past this one? We never should have bothered. I didn’t find anything remotely useful.”

“Hang on,” I said suddenly. I had completely forgotten about the little black book. I leapt out of the bed and snatched out from my jacket which had been lying on the floor in a heap. I handed it to Rosaline; praying that it would help us.

She wrenched it open and scanned the pages at top speed. I watched her expression and gradually it brightened considerably. “Where did you get this?” she exclaimed hoarsely in amazement.

“It’s useful?” I said excitedly, pleased that I had accomplished at least one good thing during the whole fiasco.

“It’s brilliant!” Rosaline shrieked. “See here! There are numerous calculations here that work out how much gas is needed to cause the explosion! Look! It says: Gas type, methane. Minimum gas, 20 taps, ten minutes, lesson plan flame tests… This explains everything! Where did you get this?”

“It was in the wardrobe in a secret compartment,” I told her eagerly. “I thought it must be useful because it was hidden so well!” I then thought about what was ever so strange about the contents of that wardrobe. “It was odd that he stored it in something that was his wife’s, though. The wardrobe was filled full with woman’s things.”

“Maybe he was preparing himself, in case his house was ever searched. Maybe he was going to pin it on his wife if anyone ever suspected him,” Rosaline said carefully.

I nodded in agreement and took back the book to analyse it myself. It did indeed contain all the incriminating information that Rosaline had said. But there was something funny about it. The way that the words had been written, was all swirly and neat; quite unlike the handwriting of most middle-aged men that I knew. Also, on closer examination, the black book had many tiny flower imprints all over the cover.

Would Barratt really go all this way to make it looked like his wife had written this? And if so, why? Did he really care for his wife? Or was that an act as well? Also, did this book really contain proper notes? Or was it all completely fake, and was planted there as some sort of decoy? There was something extremely odd about this and I was sure there was a huge piece of the puzzle that Rosaline and I were missing out on.