Dear Mummy,

I think Zoe was right. Parents just let you down. Why aren’t you answering my letters? I know you’ve received them because Freya sent me a card the other week and she said she’d passed them on to you.

What is it Mummy? Why are you ignoring me? Is this it? I just get left here?

Weasel Face has moved me into another bedroom. The old one had too many memories of Zoe. I couldn’t sleep in there. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her lying on the train tracks. The new room is better though I still have nightmares.

School is just as bad, worse actually because now I don’t have Zoe to talk to when I get home. The other girls are being really horrible to me. There’s a big group of them, led by this girl called Jade who sits on my table. It started with them stealing my pencil case, then hiding my coat, stupid things, but then since Zoe died it’s just got worse and worse.

Last week I was sitting in the library reading my science book and I felt a jolt. I turned round and Jade was standing there grinning at me. She had a pair of scissors in one hand and a clump of hair in the other. It took me a couple of moments to realize that it was my hair. I could hear her laughing behind me as I ran to the toilets. I shut the door and went over to the mirror. When I saw what she had done I screamed. She’d cut off a chunk of my hair. I looked like a freak.

And that is what they started calling me. Freak. Every time I walked into the classroom I heard it and it was just low enough for the adults not to hear. Freak. Freak. That word hammered at my head. I heard it every moment of the day, from the time I woke up until I went to sleep at night. Sometimes I heard it in my dreams, a horrible chorus of girls repeating it over and over again, freak, freak, freak.

Anyway, a couple of days ago things changed. I became more like Zoe.

Jade thinks she’s safe as long as she has that big group of friends around. Everywhere she goes they go with her. There are two who are her best friends – a short, fat girl called Heidi and a tall, spotty one called Paula – and they are the worst. While they are there to egg her on she can do what she likes. But then a couple of days ago Paula and Heidi were both off sick and Jade was by herself. At break, I saw her standing by the boiler room at the far end of the playground. She was bouncing a tennis ball against the wall. Up and down. Up and down. It had been raining and I wanted to look for snails. Since the trip to the museum I’ve been collecting specimens to examine. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Why would you be bothered? You can’t even reply to my letters. Still, it makes me feel better to write it all down. Anyway, as I walked across the playground with my new specimen jar in my hand I felt Jade’s eyes on me. There were no snails but I saw a fat brown slug on the path. I was just bending down to pick it up when I heard it.

‘Freak.’

I looked up. She was still standing by the wall but she had stopped bouncing the tennis ball. She had her arms folded across her chest and her pug face was screwed up with hatred. I put the slug in the jar and walked up the path. I just wanted to go inside to the school library and concentrate on my experiment. But as I drew level with her she kicked my ankle and I fell over. The jar smashed to the ground. I jumped up to try and rescue the slug but she got there before I did or at least her foot did. I heard a horrible squishing noise as she ground the slug with her shoe.

I asked her why she did it and she said I was a freak, a weirdo who puts dead things in jars. She said that I was a loser whose parents had dumped me and that no wonder Zoe killed herself, having to put up with me.

And when she said that, my brain went all hot and fuzzy and I couldn’t think straight. All I could see was her disgusting smile. It was horrible, like an evil clown. I wanted to wipe the smile off her face so I grabbed her hair and smashed her head against the wall, again and again and again. She started screaming but I didn’t stop. I liked the fact that she was scared of me and I wanted her to learn a lesson. I wanted to smash all the horrible things that she had said about me out of her brain.

She started screaming then some teachers came out and pulled me off her. They started fussing over Jade and I was sent to the Head’s office. I’ve been put in detention for a week and I have to see the school counsellor again to deal with my anger.

I don’t care about any of it. I’m just glad I stood up to that witch. Whenever she sees me now she backs away. I’ve scared her and I’m glad.