Tale Of Truth

• Caylee Tierney, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2008

It’s a nasty day in Sydney. I stand, a lone figure in a long black coat, watching the world go past. It’s one of my favourite pass times, to let it all wash around me. The wind whips leaves and torrents of air through gaps of buildings, to where I stand, watching a group of teenagers mucking around. It kind of reminds me of what I used to be like, before I found my bitter truth.
I think fifteen years into the past, when everything was fun and school was forever. I knew lots of people, had lots of friends, you could say. I was at the top end of average in everything, which pleased me. I didn’t want to excel in one area; I wanted to be reasonable at everything. I suppose you could think of it as wanting to please everyone.
Anyway, this particular day, I want to school, bursting to tell everybody my news. I had finally persuaded my parents to take me skiing. We had all over the top about it for the past few months. But, today there was more interesting news. Monique, one of my friends, had a new boyfriend, an out of school boyfriend. My skiing trip didn’t get a chance. Neither did I, when I tried to tell them that Monique’s ex-boyfriend was right behind them, listening to their giggling and excitement.
As preparations for my families skiing trip went ahead, I forgot all about Monique and her boyfriend. What’s so important about that, right? But I didn’t forget how not even my best friend wanted to hear about my skiing trip. It upset me.
One day at school, I happened to be in the wrong place at entirely the wrong time. I saw Monique kissing her boyfriend at the gate. I watched them walk away and happened to see Monique’s ex following them.
I looked around, but no one else seemed to have noticed. So I followed them. I walked slowly so that they wouldn’t notice me, until I heard a scream. I ran around the corner, to see the two guys facing each other and Monique huddling against the wall. The ex threw a punch at the other, and then I saw what happened next, but couldn’t believe it. Monique’s present boyfriend drew a knife; the blade glinting in the afternoon sun and plunged it with practiced accuracy into the ex. Monique screamed again, not scared this time, terrified. The ex made a gurgling sound, before dropping to the ground.
I backed around the corner, thinking quickly. The boyfriend obviously wasn’t a local, because the police station was in the next street. I ran there, not daring to think what might already have happened to Monique. I ran straight into a police officer outside the building and told them what had happened. They shoved me inside to a second officer and I waited for a while, before I was questioned and sent home with my parents.
While I was waiting inside, I had a lot of time to think. I thought about the way that my friends had been acting. It was like someone had flicked a switch so that they didn’t care about anything that had to do with me anymore. Maybe Monique had told them something, some dirty rumour. I don’t know why I suddenly pounced on Monique. I guess it might have been because she was fairly new to our school, our group. I didn’t know her as well as I knew the others and she did seem to be drawing all of the attention to her, since she came. And there was one time, when I saw something in her eyes.
Anyway, my parents didn’t let me go back to school after that, before our trip. They said I needed a break. I didn’t argue, because I didn’t really want to confront the people who I knew as my friends. What if they were on Monique’s side? She had been slowly poisoning them, since she arrived. At that stage, I shook my head. I was probably just being paranoid, too suspicious. Hopefully the ski trip would help.
I have always loved skiing and as I sped down the slopes I thought that nothing could go wrong. Naturally that’s when something did. I saw mum speed past me as I slowed down to enjoy the view, and then I didn’t see her anymore. A few metres in front of me everything turned into a white haze. There was silence as the air cleared. Everyone was shocked. We had just seen everyone buried in tonnes of snow, right in front of us. Then everything started screaming. I can’t remember much else. Dad said I was in shock.
A month later, I finally returned to school. I gazed around for my friends, hoping to see them cackling like chickens somewhere, over some little thing. Some sign of normality, it would have been. I heard Monique’s voice and started towards it. I stopped dead as I heard another voice.
“Oh my gosh,” Monique said,
“She totally likes you. I’d watch out, she does some really gross things.” She giggled as my mouth dropped open. I turned and stormed away, not wanting to hear anymore. Monique had just said that to the guy that I liked. If Monique knew, that meant that my bestie had told her. I couldn’t believe it. Well I could, I just didn’t want to.
At recess, they came up to me as a cluster.
“Hey, I thought you were going skiing for a week, not a month,” my ‘former’ bestie said.
“Yeah, Monique really needed all of us after what happened. But you still went skiing,” accused another. Suddenly it all made sense. Monique had been slowly plotting to take everything away from me, ever since she came. Why? Well I could only assume jealousy. So it was time to see whose side they were really on.
At lunch, I took my ‘bestie’ aside for questioning. I started with,
“Jen, I can’t believe you told Monique who I like,” I said, offended.
“It’s not like it was a big secret or anything. I mean you talk all of the time,” she said carelessly.
“Not to you,” I replied with a hundred percent genuine offence. She rounded on me.
“Yeah, just like Monique isn’t anything to you. Do you even know what happened?” she hissed. I started to nod.
“Ok, I see whose basket your eggs are in. I thought you were my best friend.”
“I was, but you know what, things change,” she said nastily. Then I knew it was over.
“Yeah, things change, or they’re changed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You must be dumber than I first thought. Monique has been manipulating you away from me since the start. Go on, think about it. Yes, I do know what happened to her. I was the one who got the police. But oh, no, she didn’t tell you that, did she? The real question is, do you know? Obviously not, but if you were really my friend, you would. You’d notice that there’s something wrong. You’d see something other than yourself and Monique.” My eyes were locked on hers and all I saw was hatred. I was yelling, but the last word was a whisper. So Monique had won.
“What did your dog die, or something?” she asked sarcastically. The smirk fell off her face at the look on mine. I couldn’t bear to answer, so I threw the newspaper clipping at her feet and ran away.
I did loose everything. None of them ever talked to me again. Monique probably soothed their guilt, said that it was my fault. Loosing the guy that I liked to Monique was a slap in the face. But I figured that if he would stoop to her level, he didn’t deserve me. And worst of all, I lost my Mum. The realisation took a while.
But I found myself. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I realised that there is more than you think, waiting to be searched for, or more often stumbled upon. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today, without all of that having happened.
I walk off into the day, in to the sunlight. Now I work with those who don’t demean me, those who can’t betray me. The dead.
Caylee Tierney