The soonest a locksmith could come out was Monday morning, by which time Veronica Walsh had screamed herself hoarse, and shredded her fingernails scratching at the door. The thing the headmaster found when the lock was sprung and the door opened was a pale imitation of the popular girl whose face had been broadcast on every news bulletin. She was sitting in the corner with her back against the boiler, seemingly impervious to the blistering, uninterrupted heat emanating from it, and to the stench from the bodily fluids she was sitting in. The doll’s head was on her lap, and she held it like a mourning mother gone insane, clutching a long dead infant. Recognition lit up her face when she saw Headmaster Fourmile, and she reached out to him and whispered pitifully.
‘Mr Fourmile? Are you in my dream too?’
Fourmile went to great pains to appease the girl’s parents, interrogating every senior student in school over the next two weeks, but it was to no avail. The Walsh’s removed their daughter from the school, and with her went any hope the headmaster had of their continued generous financial support. Veronica’s victims, as well as her long suffering friends, rejoiced. Samantha felt empty. Horrid as she was, Veronica Walsh was the perfect cavy; her wickedness didn’t just make torturing her acceptable – it made it fun. What better sport was there than reducing the meanest kid in school to a puddle of pee?
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