The Eye of the Moon Read online

  So there she was on the evening of Halloween, dressed like the Dweeb That Time Forgot and without a friend in the world, a prime candidate for a stream of bitchy comments from Ulrika Price and her circle of cronies. Ulrika and her three closest followers had come to the ball dressed as cats. The latter were all in black panther costumes, whereas Ulrika was wearing a Bengal tiger outfit, complete with sharp claws attached to the ends of her fingers.

  The cats had spotted Beth where she sat in a plastic chair at the edge of the dance floor along with a few other rejects, each desperately hoping a boy would ask her to join him on the floor for a dance. That the butt of their scorn was dressed as Dorothy meant that a situation like this didn’t require any bitchy comments – Ulrika and her friends merely pointed at Beth and laughed loudly and ostentatiously. This drew sufficient attention to the wretched girl for everyone else who, until then, had been ignoring her, to join in the laughter and sniggering too. If Ulrika and her friends were laughing, then everyone else wanted to be seen to be appreciating the joke. Social acceptance was important at Santa Mondega High, and if Ulrika Price the bottle-blonde cheerleader thought you weren’t laughing along with her, then you might as well pack up and head home. Beth’s only crumb of comfort was that she hadn’t been forced by her stepmother to dye her hair ginger for added authenticity. At least she was lucky enough to have kept her beautiful long brown mane.

  It was small consolation, as it turned out, for her humiliation was just about completed shortly after eleven o’clock when one of the black panthers convinced the guy in charge of the lighting to train a spotlight on Beth. As the harsh beam illuminated the forlorn figure the deejay (another of Ulrika’s friends) announced that, yep, ol’ Dorothy over there in the spotlight was the ‘yoo-NANNY-muss’ winner of the award for lamest costume. The horribly amplified announcement brought yet more howls of laughter from what was rapidly turning into a baying mob of teenagers high on drink and drugs.

  Beth sat in dignified silence, waiting desperately for the spotlight to move away as she struggled to hold back the ocean of tears she could feel building up. But the spotlight stayed. Not wanting to miss out on a photo opportunity, Ulrika sauntered over and patted her on the head.

  ‘You know what, honey?’ she smirked. ‘If there was a contest to find the world’s biggest loser, you’d come second.’

  That was the end for Beth. Tears began to stream down her face, and a great pent-up sob caught at her throat. The only thing left to do was get up and run out of the hall. As she fled he could hear the laughter behind her from everyone there. Even the other outsiders would join in – to be seen not laughing might make one of them the next victim. And nobody wanted to be lumped into the same loser category as the girl who had come dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

  As Beth burst through the double doors at the end of the hall and out into the corridor she felt she had reached an all-time low. She had pleaded with her stepmother not to pick a shitty costume for her. But her pleas had fallen on deaf ears, as she had known they would. Even so, the bitch had cackled in pleasure when Beth begged to be allowed to change the costume. Everything – her public humiliation, her tear-stained flight from the hall – was her stepmother’s fault. Yet she knew that when she got home and told her about her humiliation, the bitch would smile with satisfaction and gloat over how she had warned her stepdaughter that it was a mistake to expect others to accept her. Since her father’s death, Beth’s stepmother had delighted in telling her she was worthless. Now she was really feeling it. She was actually beginning to understand why people took their own lives. Sometimes living was just too hard.

  As she staggered down the corridor to the front entrance of the gym, desperate to be free of the place and far enough away to rid herself of the echoes of laughter from the hall, she heard someone call out behind her. It was the voice she had longed to hear all night. The boy from the year above. She had only heard him speak once before, when he had asked her if she was all right that time she had been tripped up in the schoolyard by one of Ulrika’s cronies. He had helped her to her feet, asked her if she was okay, and when she didn’t respond – because she was too dumbstruck – had merely smiled and gone on his way. Ever since, she had regretted not having thanked him at the time, and had vowed to find a way to speak to him and show her gratitude for helping her up. And now it was his voice that had asked, ‘Your mother too, huh?’

  She looked back. He was there, halfway down the corridor behind her. Bizarrely, he was dressed as a scarecrow, with a pointy brown hat perched on his head, his face covered in brown makeup meant to look like mud, and with an orange cardboard carrot secured over his nose with string tied at the back of his head. His clothes were essentially nothing more than brown rags, although he did have a pretty cool pair of brown ankle boots.

  ‘Wha–?’ was the best response Beth could muster, as she tried to wipe away a few tears to make herself look a little less of a spectacle.

  ‘My mother’s a Wizard of Oz nut, too,’ he said, waving a hand up and down at his outfit. Beth finally managed to force a smile, something that had seemed impossible only a minute earlier. She looked down ruefully at her blue gingham pinafore dress and short-sleeved white blouse. ‘I’m guessing you didn’t pick the outfit yourself?’ the scarecrow suggested.

  Beth suddenly found herself dumbstruck again. This was the moment she had planned for. She had waited for it all night, and had been bitterly humiliated in the process. But now it was here, and it wasn’t going according to plan. She wasn’t meant to be crying and generally looking a mess, even though there was not much she could do about it now. Oh God, she thought. He’s gonna think I’m a total loser.

  ‘Smoke?’ the boy asked, holding out a pack of cigarettes as he approached her.

  Beth shook her head. ‘I’m not allowed.’

  The boy shook the pack, raised it to his mouth, pulled a cigarette from it with his teeth and let it hang out of one side of his mouth. Then, still walking towards her, he lifted the cardboard-carrot nose away from his face, drew it down over his cigarette and let it fall to hang around his neck on its securing string.

  ‘Aw, c’mon,’ he said, smiling. ‘Live a little, why doncha?’

  Beth was desperate that he shouldn’t think she was totally uncool, and to be honest the only reason for not smoking was that her stepmother wouldn’t allow it. Well, right now her stepmother could go fuck herself.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, reaching out to take a cigarette from the pack. ‘You gotta light?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah,’ said the boy, straight-faced. ‘Can’t have a naked flame anywhere near me. I’d be gone in a puff.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The straw, y’know?’ He smiled, seeing her confusion. ‘Scarecrow outfit?’

  Beth gaped, then tried to recover herself. ‘Oh yeah – yeah, of course,’ she laughed nervously. You idiot! she thought to herself. He makes a joke and you don’t get it. Concentrate, fer Chrissakes: don’t let him think you’re stupid.

  There was an awkward pause as she put the cigarette to her lips and found herself wondering what she was supposed to do without a lighter. ‘So how should I light it?’ she asked. The boy smiled again, then sucked hard on the unlit cigarette that hung in the corner of his mouth. It lit up like a firework and he took a drag on it.

  ‘Wow, that’s so cool!‘ Beth blurted out, finally finding the voice to speak without first thinking too hard. ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘It’s a secret. I only show my friends.’

  ‘Oh.’

  There was another uncomfortable pause as Beth wondered whether to ask if he would show her. Thing was, if he said no then it would mean he was saying they weren’t friends. But eventually, after what seemed like a horrendously long and awkward pause, he took another drag on the cigarette and took it out of his mouth with his left hand.

  ‘That Ulrika Price is a real bitch, huh?’ he said, blowing out some smoke through his nostrils.

  Beth co
uldn’t help nodding frantically in agreement.

  ‘I hate her,’ she said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth.

  They smiled at each other for a few moments, and then the boy spoke again.

  ‘So, you want me to show you how to light that cigarette or what?’

  Still nodding like a lunatic, Beth let a huge smile break out across her whole face. It succeeded in camouflaging the tears that had been streaming down her cheeks only a minute before, such was the beauty of it.

  ‘Yeah, please,’ she cooed.

  ‘Come on then, let’s get the hell outta here before we set off a smoke alarm.’

  The next moment was the greatest feeling of Beth’s life. This boy, this guy she had so desperately sought attention from, reached over and put his arm around her shoulder. Nervously she slid her arm around his waist and squeezed him ever so subtly. He obviously picked up on it because he pulled her in a little closer. Then he set off down the hallway to the school entrance with her in tow. Dorothy and the scarecrow walking together, well this was the cue for a song, Beth thought.

  ‘We’re off to see the wizard …’ she began to sing.

  ‘Don’t sing.’ Her new beau shook his head.

  ‘Really?’ Beth asked, a cold flush coming over her. She feared she had made a fatal error of judgement.

  ‘It’s no wonder you’ve got no friends!’ the boy joked. Beth looked up at him and was relieved to see a big smile break out on his face. He then squeezed her in tightly towards him. Phew, he was just teasing.

  On their way out through the front doors of the school a young man dressed as a giant rodent bounded in past them. His costume was an all-in-one auburn-coloured suit made of fake fur, with a long tail at the back. Part of his face was visible under the headpiece but it was painted a similar colour to the costume, and had whiskers drawn on the cheeks. Beth didn’t know him, but her new friend spotted a face he recognized beneath the makeup.

  ‘You’re a bit late,’ the scarecrow pointed out as the fur ball brushed past him.

  ‘Yeah, left my pills at home. Had to go back and get them,’ muttered the rodent. ‘By the way, either of you two seen that Ulrika Price broad anywhere?’

  ‘She’s in the main hall,’ said Beth, nodding back down the corridor.

  ‘Cool, thanks,’ said the rodent boy. ‘I’m gonna buy that girl a drink.’ Then, scratching himself in an area of his rodent costume that implied he was pleasuring himself, he headed off towards the hall.

  ‘Who was that creepy guy?’ Beth asked.

  Her handsome scarecrow friend knew the other boy well.

  ‘That’s Marcus the Weasel,’ he said. ‘Total perv. Lord only knows what he’s got in store for your friend Ulrika.’

  Unbeknown to the two youngsters, the unpleasantness that Marcus the Weasel was about to inflict upon Ulrika Price was nothing compared to the horror and suffering they were both about to endure on this most evil of nights.

  Three

  Beth and the scarecrow strolled along the promenade with the waves lapping up against the harbour wall to their left. A blue moon shone brightly above them in the night sky. It was surrounded by dark rain clouds that looked ready to burst, yet as if out of respect, they stayed clear of the moon, as though not wishing to block it from the view of those below.

  In all her life Beth had never felt this alive, this excited. Her stepmother had succeeded in scaring off any boys that had ever come near her, so she had never been able even to hold a decent conversation with a young man before. After being tutored at home since her early childhood she had acquired a decent education, but virtually no life experience until recently, when she had joined the school. And now for the first time in her life she had a boy with his arm around her shoulder, walking her along the promenade. If the dark clouds above them had had numbers on them then it’s fair to say she was heading for number nine. Chatting with the scarecrow hadn’t been anywhere near as difficult and nerve-racking as she had feared it might be. Her heart was still pounding in her chest, barely able to control itself due to the almighty adrenalin rush she was feeling. It was a warm fuzzy sensation that felt like it would never end, and she dearly hoped that it wouldn’t.

  ‘So come on, Mr Scarecrow, are you going to tell me your name, or what?’ she asked, squeezing his waist playfully.

  ‘You don’t know my name?‘ he asked, surprised.

  ‘No. I only know you as the guy who helped me up from the ground when someone tripped me over once.’

  ‘Wow. You know, I made a point of finding out your name the day you joined the school. And yet, you’ve been there now for – what? Two months? And you still don’t know my name?’

  ‘No. But don’t feel bad. I don’t know hardly anybody’s name. No one talks to me.’

  ‘No one?’ he sounded surprised again.

  ‘Yeah. All the other girls ignore me, because of that Ulrika Price. She’s had it in for me since the day I started, so no one else will talk to me.’

  The scarecrow stopped walking and removed his arm from where it had been resting around her shoulders. He stepped in front of her to stop her from moving on ahead, and then, when they were close enough to each other that they were almost touching and she could feel his breath on her face, he ran his left hand through her long brown hair.

  ‘JD,’ he said.

  Beth raised an eyebrow. ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘JD. That’s what my friends call me.’

  ‘Oh, right. What’s it stand for?’

  ‘You’ll have to guess.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Beth smiling. She took a look up at the moon and tried to think of an interesting name that used the initials J and D.

  ‘Got it yet?’ he asked her.

  ‘Joey Deacon?’

  JD stopped stroking her hair and gave her a playful shove.

  ‘This is why no one talks to you!’

  Beth smiled back at him. Chatting with JD was actually good fun and surprisingly easy. It didn’t seem to matter what she said, she knew he would ‘get it’. Maybe guys weren’t so complicated after all. At least, this one seemed to be right on her wavelength. She’d never had a connection like this with anyone before, let alone a boy. He seemed to understand her, and for the first time ever she wasn’t in the least bit terrified of saying something stupid. In fact, she was beginning to feel a sense of confidence flowing through her. This was new.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Beth,’ said JD taking a few steps back as he spoke. ‘If you can find out what JD stands for, I’ll take you out on a date.’

  Beth tilted her head to one side. ‘What makes you think I want to go on a date with you?’ she said with a shrug.

  JD rolled his tongue around in his mouth for a moment, pondering his response. It didn’t take him long to work it out.

  ‘You wanna go out with me,’ he said with a wink.

  Beth started walking again and brushed her shoulder against his as she passed him.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  JD watched her walk on down the promenade towards the abandoned pier just a hundred yards ahead. When she was about ten yards in front of him he started walking slowly after her, admiring her gently swivelling hips as she walked. For her part, Beth knew he was checking her out and she exaggerated the hip movement just a little to ensure he kept his eyes fixed on her ass.

  ‘You gonna stay back there all night?’ she called back eventually.

  ‘Shit!’ she heard JD shout. She stopped walking and turned back. His voice betrayed a note of genuine annoyance.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s nearly twelve!’ JD seemed panicked and was looking around him.

  ‘What’s so bad about that? Have you got to be home?’

  ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. Look, I’ve gotta rush. I have to pick my little brother up from church. He’ll get panicky and upset if I’m late.’

  Beth took a step towards him. ‘I’ll come with you, if you like.’

  ‘Nah. Than
ks for the offer, but my brother will get all excitable if he sees you and we’ll never get him home. Then my mom will go nuts if he’s late.’

  ‘Well, I can wait here for you, if you can come back.’ Beth couldn’t hide the fact that she didn’t want the evening to end, and she definitely didn’t want to head back home to her stepmother just yet.

  ‘You sure?’ asked JD

  ‘Sure I’m sure. And I’ll tell you what. If you can make it back here by one o’clock, the end of the witching hour, I’ll let you take me out.’

  JD grinned at her. ‘See you at one then. Wait for me on the pier. Be careful though, there’s some weirdos around tonight.’ With that remark still floating in the air he turned and dashed off in the direction of town.

  The promenade was still deserted and the waves were breaking softly against the harbour wall just a few feet from where Beth was walking. The ocean air was refreshing as it filled her lungs and she took several deep breaths of it. At last she was finding out what it was like to be truly happy.

  After less than a minute she reached the pier and stepped on to the creaky wooden boards that led out over the water. The pier was no more than fifty yards long and was a little rickety, but it yet hadn’t been deemed unsafe by the Mayor. Beth walked along it until she reached the end where she stood leaning over the wooden railing, looking out over the ocean.

  The moon was still shining brightly and she lost herself in it, gazing at its reflection across the rippling waves and smiling both inwardly and outwardly. The gentle raindrops that had been splashing on her face intermittently for the last few minutes began to drop a little more frequently. Not that she minded. Nor did she care, either, that she had promised her stepmother that she would be home by midnight.