Page 70 of Noxious Boys (Groveton College)

He grunts with distrust, “You called Dr Soren,” a statement.

“I did, Sir,” I swallow, thinking of the call with my psychiatrist back in England, the nasally judgement I felt through the phone.

Staring at my boots, the heavy grey sky reflecting in their rough polish.

“Good. And your pills,” not a question.

“Yes, Sir, I’m taking them,” I shift my weight from one foot to the other at my lie, I only use them to sleep, three or four at a time seems to work. “Da- Sir, I was wondering if I could transfer to the other colle-”

“I knew it. What did you do, Poppy? What the fuck did you do?!” His voice cuts down the line, vicious in my ear, and my tummy cramps with my nerves.

I thrust a hand over my hair, gripping atop the strands at the nape of my neck, squeezing the muscles.

“It’s nothing, I don’t not- I just, the other place has a progr-”

“I am getting sick and tired of listening to your blithering, girl. I warned you. I told you before you left that if you fucked up once more, I would have you sent straight back to Briarmoor, did you not understand me?”

“No, Sir, I did. I do understand you, but I-”

“Enough,” he barks, cutting me off. “Now, you listen to me, and you listen well. A very prominent colleague of mine helped secure your place at that college, Poppy, a verypowerfulman, and it wouldn’t make me look very good if you fucked this up on purpose now. Would it?”

“No, Sir. I would-”

“Right. So here’s what we’re going to do. You want to leave, here’s the compromise. I’m going to send Jeanie to you on a plane to bring you back,” my breath sails out of me, heart thudding loud in my chest with something like strangled relief. “And you can go for a nice long stay in Briarmoor until you learn to be more fucking grateful!” he spits down the phone, my lungs screaming.

“No, no, Da-, Sir. Please, I’ll stay here, I’ll stay, I can do better, I’ll make it work, whatever you want, I’ll do it, I wil-”

“Enough! Now that that’s settled, you will go to your classes, you will take your pills, you will check in regularly with Dr Soren and you willnotdisrespect my generosity with you again. Do you understand?” I can almost see the snarl in his top lip as his last word curls with each syllable.

“Yes, Sir.”

“I could take it away just like that, Poppy. Do not forget that, girl.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

And then he hangs up on me, the line dead, and I can finally take a breath, when a gag is pulled across my mouth, a cloth bag tugged over my head.

A muffled, menacing voice in my ear hissing, “Surprise!”

Chapter 31

POPPY

Tears roll down my cheeks. Cotton stuffed in my mouth, drying out my tongue, making me want to heave, but I can’t be sick for fear of choking inside of the hessian sack jammed over my head.

My face smacks off of, what I can only assume is, the boot of a car, as the tyres hit a bump in the road. Then I’m thrown back against the rear seats, my spine crashing into them, knocking the air from my lungs.

But it’s the darkness that’s my executioner.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, trying to ignore the fact I’m locked in the dark, hands tied together at my back, knotted at the base of my spine with a rough length of fabric. The more I wriggle my hands, the tighter it cuts into me, and only when my thumbs go numb from lack of circulation do I let my fingers relax, lie limp.

It goes on and on. I don’t know how much time passes as I try to calm my breaths, try to follow the twists and turns of the car inside my head, left, right, another right. Try to count seconds, but it’s no good, I can’t even get past the count of thirty-three. I’m thrown about like an insect in a glass jar, a small child with boisterous hands shaking it up.

The car engine rumbles, vibrating through my bones, rattling my teeth, and then it’s slowing, what sounds like gravel attacking the paintwork as it spits up the sides of the car. And it goes on, the slow, seemingly endless movement of the car, the same road surface, gravel, then something smoother, before more lumps and bumps and potholes.

My brain is rattling and my skull pounds with a headache fogging through the front of my cranium like a heavy, dense cloud as we finally come to a stop.

And I realise, very quickly, that maybe this is worse.

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