Free Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell

‘I’m going to pick some stuff up from the pharmacy. I’ll meet you back at the bus.’
    Arthur was relieved that this would put an end to Penny’s questions, and he waved her off absent-mindedly, conscious that his hands were still shaking.
    Once the boys were out of sight, Penny retraced her way to Aunt Bessie’s Sweet Shop. There were more students in there, getting the full furious treatment from Bessie, so Penny pretended to look at some out-of-season Easter eggs. When the other customers had gone she approached Aunt Bessie gingerly.
    ‘You again?’ Aunt Bessie coughed. ‘We’re out of flying saucers.’
    ‘I don’t want any flying saucers,’ Penny said. ‘I want to know where you recognised my friend from.’
    ‘Do you now? You’re not going to buy anything from me then?’ Aunt Bessie tutted.
    ‘Fine,’ Penny said irritably. ‘I’ll have some cinder toffee.’
    Aunt Bessie reached for the jar slowly. ‘Now, let me see . . .’ she said, scarcely containing her enjoyment. ‘He was in the paper all right, but what was it for?’
    Penny waited, shaking her head.
    ‘I’m just trying to remember the details! Now, what was it?’ she murmured to herself. ‘A hammer? No. A rock? No. Ah, yes!’ Aunt Bessie cackled with satisfaction. ‘I remember the story. He was bullied very badly at this school. Regular beatings and all that. They even tried to drown him and then –’
    The bell went as the shop was flooded with students again. Penny turned and fled.
    ‘Don’t you want to know the rest?’ Aunt Bessie called after her, but Penny was gone.
    Penny ran down a side street into an empty pub car park and leaned against a wall to catch her breath. She ran over what Aunt Bessie had just said, her mind crowded with terrible, fragmented images. No wonder Arthur had never liked talking about his last school, she thought. The bullies had tried to drown him – and then what? Penny was horrified. Poor Arthur. She wanted to talk to him, but she knew he would be furious if he discovered she had returned to the sweet shop; she felt a little guilty that she had done so. She would just have to pretend she had never heard his story, and hope that one day he would trust her enough to tell her about it himself.
    There was a creaking from the other side of the car park, and Penny looked up, paranoid that someone from school had seen her. But the noise was just a rusty, old swing set moving by the breeze. Penny pushed her hair back and took a deep breath, trying to compose herself before rejoining the boys. The creaking grew louder, and Penny glanced back at the swing.
    Swinging back and forth was Lola Lollipop.
    She was taller now, almost as tall as Penny, and her porcelain face was cracked and dirty. Her red hair had fallen out in clumps, exposing a pitted, china skull scattered with remaining tufts. One glass eye had fallen out, leaving an empty, black socket where a spider had spun a web. Lola’s porcelain legs scraped together underneath her tattered lace dress as she pushed herself on the swing. On her painted face was a frozen, malevolent smile.
    Penny knew instinctively that she should run, but she felt as heavy and immobile as a doll herself, unable to even scream.
    ‘Hello,’ Lola rasped, her one grey eye fixed on Penny. ‘You’ve been a very bad friend.’
    Lola creaked off the swing, her movements the unsteady, inhuman jitter of a puppet. She took a jerky step towards Penny.
    ‘Why did you leave me, Penny?’ The voice was mournful, desperate, with the grinding quality of a ceramic pestle and mortar.
    Penny couldn’t answer, couldn’t move and could barely breathe. The sight of the broken marionette hobbling towards her made her feel faint with terror.
    The temperature dropped to a biting chill as Lola twitched nearer and nearer. Soon she was close enough for Penny to see the fat spider sitting in her eye socket and close enough to see the sharpness of the china teeth.
    Penny found her knees bending