The Treatment Read online

  The friends circle us, arms outstretched, and herd us like sheep towards the door. Up on the stage, Israel has been lifted into the air and is being carried off the stage by Stuart and the three other men. He’s lying limp in their arms, his head lolling on his neck, his eyes closed.

  ‘Hey!’ I duck under Abi’s arms and double back towards the stage. ‘What have you done to him? Hey –’

  I jolt backwards as someone grabs the back of my hoody and pulls.

  ‘Leave the room calmly and silently,’ Destiny hisses in my ear.

  ‘No. I … ow!’

  ‘Calmly and silently, please, Drew,’ she says as she marches me towards the door, one arm twisted up behind my back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The tension and fear in the rec room is palpable. Everywhere I look there are kids gathered in huddles, wide-eyed and fearful, whispering furtively as the friends attempt to reassure them that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Some of the students are muttering that Israel is dead. Others think Dr Rothwell stepped forward and injected him with something.

  I slip silently into the cinema. I need to be somewhere quiet where I can process what I’ve just seen, but I’m not alone. Jude and another girl have claimed two of the seats in the back row. They’re chatting animatedly and don’t hear me come in.

  ‘They’ll put him in isolation,’ Jude says as I crouch down in the darkness, my back pressed against the wall. ‘He’ll be out in a couple of days.’

  Her friend shakes her head. ‘Nah, they’ll claim he tried to attack Dr Rothwell and fast-track him to treatment.’

  ‘They won’t do that. They’ll want to punish him first.’

  ‘Have you ever seen anyone after they’ve been in isolation? When they get out they’re totally –’

  I snap round, sensing someone at the door. If it’s Destiny I’ll swing for her if she so much as touches me. But it’s not Destiny who cuffs a hand against the top of my head as she blinks into the darkness. It’s Mouse. I scrabble to my feet and gently shove her back into the rec room.

  ‘Megan,’ I hiss, as the door to the cinema clicks shut behind me. ‘Could you stop doing that? Seriously, I’m going to have a heart attack if you keep creeping up on me.’

  She shrugs. She still hasn’t said a single word to me since her creepy whisper on my first night. And I’m starting to wonder if I imagined that. I don’t know if she’s lonely, bored or just a bit weird, but she needs to stop following me around everywhere. There are shedloads of other girls here that she could be friends with.

  ‘Why do you keep following me?’ I say. ‘Do you want me to swap bunks or something?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Well that’s good.’ I glance up at the huge clock on the wall above the door to the library. It’s nearly 9.30, time for lessons. An hour and a half to go until we’re allowed to go outside. Mouse catches me looking down at the trainers I put on this morning.

  ‘I’m going to English,’ I say. ‘Are you coming?’

  She shakes her head. Maths then.

  ‘OK then, I’ll see you later.’ I take a few steps towards the door then turn back. ‘Could you like cough or something, the next time you creep up on me? Just so I don’t poo my pants?’

  She smiles, then stares at her shoes as her cheeks flush red.

  *

  I suck in deep lungfuls of air as I march around the running track, keeping one eye on the door, to see who else is coming outside, and one eye on the running track on the other side of the fence. It’s five past eleven and not a single person has come out of the West Wing door. Tons of kids have spilled out of the East Wing, along with a lot of blue sweatshirts. The friends are all dotted around – two or three standing on the touchline watching the football, two throwing balls over the net in the tennis court and another two joining in a basketball game. Then there’s Abi, Stuart and Destiny standing by the door that leads back to the rec room. They’re all watching me.

  I start to jog, the cold air catching in my lungs as my flat feet thump on the track and I half-heartedly pump my arms. It’s been a long time since I did any exercise and I feel heavy and awkward. A couple of guys sprint past me. So does a girl with a long, blonde ponytail. But none of them look or laugh. The track’s starting to fill up with more kids, walking and running around, or else gathered in the middle to chat. That’s good. The more people there are the more chance I have of talking to my brother through the fence without drawing attention to myself. That’s if the pre-treatment kids ever come outside. There’s still no one on the other side of the fence.

  As I continue to run I feel a weird, prickling sensation on the back of my neck as if I’m being watched. But, as I round the bend and catch sight of Stuart, Abi and Destiny again, none of them are looking at me. They’re chatting amongst themselves and don’t so much as glance at me as I huff and puff towards them. And then I see it, movement at one of the windows on the second floor, and the silhouette of a man, standing in a dark room, looking out. He vanishes almost as quickly as he appeared. I shiver as I continue to jog. This place is seriously creepy.

  My heart sinks as time ticks on and I slow to a walk. Most of the other kids who were standing in the middle have wandered off to watch the football or basketball. It’s just me, the girl with the ponytail and the two boys who are continuing to plod around the track.

  ‘Five minutes!’ Stuart shouts from the doorway to the rec room. ‘Five minutes left!’

  I stop walking and double over, my hands on my thighs as I suck in the cold February air. I pinned everything on the fact that Mason would exercise at the same time as me. I don’t know if that was wishful thinking or stupidity. Of course they’d want to keep us separate. But what do I do now? I have to give Mason the map of the basement before he’s moved to the treatment centre or Mum will be taking two brainwashed kids home with her.

  ‘OK, that’s it! Everyone in, please!’ Stuart shouts.

  I straighten up. As I do, the door to the West Wing opens and a beautiful black girl with a waist-length weave steps out. She’s followed by a surly-looking Asian guy, a white guy with closely cropped hair, a massive black guy and – oh my God – it’s Mason.

  Over on my side of the fence there’s a sudden surge of kids coming back into the track field from the football pitch. They crowd around Stuart, Abi and Destiny as they attempt to get to the door.

  ‘Mason!’ My bracelets jangle against the metal links of the fence as I run back down the field towards the house. ‘Mason Finch!’

  For a heart-stopping second, when he sets off anti-clockwise around the track, I don’t think he’s heard me, but then his head jerks round and our eyes meet. His jaw drops and his eyes widen in surprise. I duck down beside the fence, praying none of the friends clocked his startled expression, and fiddle with my shoelaces. Walk over here. I mentally send him a message. Mason, walk over here.

  A couple of seconds later the fence shakes. My brother is sitting on the ground less than a metre away from me with his back against the wire mesh, his hands on his shoelaces.

  ‘Drew,’ he hisses. ‘What the hell are you –’

  ‘No time to talk,’ I hiss back. Destiny has forced her way through the crowd of students gathered at the doorway and she’s heading straight towards me. ‘I got your message from Dr Cobey and I’ve got a plan. You need to get down to the basement. I’ve got a map of some tunnels that –’ As I reach into my bra my brother coughs loudly.

  ‘Drew,’ Destiny says, pressing a firm hand to my shoulder. ‘It’s time to come in.’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Has anyone seen Israel since this morning?’ asks Jake, a fourteen-year-old with a ridiculously cherubic face that makes him look years younger.

  Everyone around the table shakes their head. It’s 5 p.m., dinner time, and the main topic of conversation is still what happened in assembly.

  ‘He’s in isolation,’ says Polly.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ says a boy with a fringe so long
it hangs in his eyes. ‘They’ve taken him to the treatment centre. Some girl saw them walking him across the field earlier.’

  ‘Who did?’ Jake asks.

  Fringe boy shakes his head. ‘I don’t know but I heard it from Iorwen who heard it from Connor. Apparently some girl was in one of the therapy rooms and she saw Israel through the window. She said he was crying.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Polly says. ‘You can’t see anything through the therapy room windows. She’d have to have been on the first or second floor to see that far across the field. I still think he’s in isolation.’

  ‘How do you get referred to pre-treatment?’ I ask.

  Everyone looks at me in astonishment. It’s the first time I’ve spoken since we all sat down. Further down the table a boy laughs and jerks his thumb in my direction. I ignore him.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Polly says. ‘I think the kids who left this morning had been here for a while. I’m pretty sure they all arrived before I did although –’

  She’s interrupted by more laughter. The boy who just jerked his thumb at me looks me straight in the eye and cups his hands over his chest, miming big boobs. I check that none of the friends are watching then give him the middle finger. Several kids either side of him laugh. The girl sitting opposite whispers into her neighbour’s ear. His eyebrows flash upwards in surprise then he cranes his neck to stare at me.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Polly says. ‘They’re just being dicks.’

  But it’s not just a handful of kids who are talking about me. The whole length of the table is whispering, pointing and laughing.

  ‘Where’s your pistols?’ one boy shouts.

  ‘Forget to do your plaits today did you, Zara?’ shouts another.

  Jude, sitting at the far end of the table, laughs so hard she slips halfway down her chair. Mouse, sitting beside her, stares at me with wide, startled eyes then glances away, her cheeks colouring.

  Ah, so that’s what’s happened is it? Mouse has told Jude that my real name is Drew and now Jude has told everyone I think I’m Zara Fox.

  ‘Cuckoo!’ One girl makes a circling motion next to her temple with her index finger. ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo!’

  I sit very still and stare at a soggy cornflake in the centre of the table as people continue to shout things at me. It’s just like school, with Lacey and her cronies spreading rumours about me. I shouldn’t have replied when Jude fired all those questions at me on the first night. If you stay silent you don’t give someone ammunition to use against you. Which is something Mouse probably knows. I was such a gullible idiot, thinking she was following me around because she was lonely, when all along she was spying on me for Jude. I was an idiot, feeling sorry for her. You can’t trust anyone here.

  ‘Show us your special moves, Drew!’

  ‘Where’s your combat vest?’

  ‘Did someone deflate your boobs?’

  The comments and the laughter just keep on coming. My cheeks are burning and my pulse is thumping in my ears. If I say a word they’ll just come back at me with more. If I leave the room they’ll think they’ve won. If I lash out I’ll be whipped away to isolation. If I want to save Mason the only thing I can do is sit here and take it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I couldn’t get out to the running track yesterday because I had a scheduled therapy session. I sat in a bare, whitewashed room with a woman called Clare who made a strange whistling noise through her nose whenever she exhaled. She asked me about my childhood, my fears and my dreams. After what had happened with the Zara Fox lie I wasn’t going to risk making stuff up again so I was monosyllabic instead.

  How was my childhood?

  Nice.

  What were my dreams like?

  Scary.

  What did I fear?

  Freezer.

  Clare got very excited when I told her I was scared of freezers. Was it the cold I didn’t like? The shape? The low hum? I nearly laughed then but managed to keep a straight face. There was no way I was going to admit to her that I’m afraid of small spaces. That would go straight back to Dr Rothwell and Mrs H. Only an idiot would hand their enemy a weapon to attack them with.

  ‘I would encourage you to be a little more forthright during our next session,’ Clare said as the hour drew to a close.

  ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘For your own good, Drew.’

  There was something distinctly threatening about the way she said those five words although she kept a smile fixed on her face as she said them.

  ‘Do you work in the treatment unit as well as here?’ I asked.

  ‘I do, yes.’

  That little creepy smile again. I couldn’t help but compare her to Dr Cobey and her honest, open face. Had she told Mason about what went on in the treatment unit? Warned him that she was going to do a runner? It would explain why he gave her the note. She must have really liked him to track me down to give it to me. Or maybe that was her only opportunity to warn someone about Norton House? But why not go to the police or the press instead? If she’d convinced someone to shut the place down instead of giving the note to me she’d still be alive.

  I didn’t have a therapy session scheduled today but there was no sign of Mason in the West Wing yard. I hung around the fence for as long as I could, until the stroke of 12 p.m., but, while other pre-treatment kids filed out of the door at one minute to twelve, there was no sign of my brother. I tried asking a girl with blonde hair and a pink and white striped jumper if she’d seen him, but Stuart saw us speaking through the fence and came rushing over to tell me it was time to go back in.

  I sat alone during lunch. I haven’t spoken to anyone since dinner two nights ago. Jude made a couple of comments when we got back to the dorm at bedtime but I blocked her out by putting on headphones and a film. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Israel today and they’re all acting like they’re in a holiday camp again. The friends have really upped the ante with the entertainment. They wheeled in a candyfloss machine earlier so everyone could stuff their faces with fluffy pink sugar. When I popped my head into the cinema to see what film was playing, several couples were sucking each other’s faces off on the back row. According to the rules, students aren’t allowed to have relationships with each other but the friends have been blatantly ignoring what’s going on. Mouse started following me everywhere again, all rounded shoulders and a face like Droopy. Is she totally stupid? She has to realize I know it was her who told Jude my real name. After the third time I spotted her I snapped at her and told her to leave me alone. She scurried away without saying a word.

  For the last hour I’ve been sitting in a corner of the rec room with a book in my hands. But I’m not reading. I’m watching the door that leads to the stairs. I’ve seen a couple of the friends going up to the dorms but not a single person has gone down to the basement. Even if I do manage to pass the map of the steam tunnels to Mason I’m guessing that the basement door will be locked. We’ll both need a staff pass to get in. The friends never take them off unless they’re going swimming and, even then, they shut them in a locker with their clothes and keep the key on a rubber band around their wrists.

  *

  It’s 6.55 the next morning and I’m still trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to get into the basement unnoticed. And I’ve thought of another issue. I know how to get down to the basement but I’ve got no idea whether Mason will be able to access it from the West Wing.

  Jude and Mouse are still asleep in their bunks. I shift to the edge of the mattress as quietly as I can and rest my feet on the first rung of the ladder. I freeze as it creaks under my weight. Beneath me, Mouse stirs in her sleep. She reaches an arm around her pillow and pulls it close but her eyelids don’t so much as flicker. I count to thirty then step down the next rung, keeping my eyes fixed on Mouse’s face. Jude, on the opposite side of the room, snores so loudly I nearly lose my grip on the ladder.

  It takes four stop-start attempts but I finally make it into the en-suite b
athroom. There’s no lock on the door so I pull it closed quietly then I reach into my bra (I’ve started wearing it under my pyjama top at night) and carefully pull out the map. I unfold it carefully and lay it on the closed toilet lid. I was hoping it would make more sense now I’ve got a rough idea of the layout of the ground floor of Norton House, but it still looks like a huge maze. And I’ve got no way of knowing which parts of the tunnels are accessible from the east and west wings. That’s if they’re not all blocked up. The pipes at either end of the house seem like they could be accessible from the stairs to the basement, if we can get to them, but the pipework in the centre of the house looks like one big tangle and it’s hard to tell which one leads outside. If we can find it we should be able to make our way under the running track, along the field and out towards the shoreline. If we could make it as far as the beach we could double back into the forest and then make our way through the fields until we get to a road. Then we’ll have to try to hitch a lift. I press a finger to the map. If that part of the pipe starts at the bottom of the stairs then I’ll need to crawl or run for about a hundred metres, turn left, continue on for twenty metres, take a right and –

  ‘Let me come with you,’ says a soft, breathy voice in my ear.

  I jump so violently I swipe the map clean off the toilet lid and onto the floor.

  ‘It’s not … it’s not …’ With shaking hands, I snatch it up and shove it down the neckline of my pyjama top. But it’s too late. I can tell by the intrigued expression on Mouse’s face that she’s already seen it.

  ‘It’s not what you think it is, Megan.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ She plucks at the sides of her pale blue nightdress. On the front, picked out in glitter, are the words Always be yourself unless you can be a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn.

  I could kick myself for not being more careful. As soon as Mouse tells Jude about the map it’ll be all over Norton House by breakfast. The friends will overhear something and I’ll be carted off to isolation. Mason could be moved to the treatment centre and I wouldn’t even know.