Soul Beach

possibly make things better, but a week on, they’re still at it. I used to feel smug when my friends moaned about their parents’ rows. Not any more.
    ‘Doesn’t this matter to you at all?’
    ‘Bea, don’t do this, please.’
    ‘No. I want to know if it matters to you.’
    I switch my music up, but it doesn’t really block out their voices.
    ‘OK. No. No, it doesn’t matter to me one bit.’
    ‘Glen, you can’t mean that. Megan deserves the right tree. Something beautiful and delicate but strong. Maybe a fruit tree is best. But then would it be strange to eat it? Oh God, you see why I need your help . . .’
    ‘Megan couldn’t tell an oak tree from a Swedish pine. She was nineteen, Bea. She didn’t give a stuff about gardening.’
    ‘It’s not gardening. It’s a symbol of her life.’
    ‘Do whatever makes you happy. Water your tree with champagne and feed it caviar, it makes no difference. We can’t replace Megan with a tree, or a rose bush or a bloody hanging basket.’
    Maybe talk radio will drown them out. I push my headphones into my laptop.
    What now? I could call Robbie, but he’ll want to talk about the funeral, because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Cara would try to distract me with her latest crush, which I can’t face either.
    If I’m really desperate, I could do my media studies assignment. I pick up the sheet: A globalised, centralised media inevitably means an impoverished world view. Discuss, with relevant examples.
    Maybe I’m not that desperate.
    I know what I want to do. It’s been at least ten minutes since I last checked my email, so I want to check again. Since the funeral, nothing’s come from Meggie’s account. Perhaps the ghost in the machine has floated off to haunt someone else. I’ve been fighting the temptation to send another email. It might be crazy, but sending that first one made me feel a tiny bit better.
    The spam folder shows three emails, none from Meggie’s account.
    I’m about to delete them and then I see the subject line of the bottom one . . .

4
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: September 22 2009
Subject: Meggie Forster wants to see you on the Beach
Dear ALICE,
MEGGIE FORSTER has invited you to join her on Soul Beach, the web’s most exclusive ‘resort based’ social networking site. Membership is strictly by invitation only and you must follow the link below for your login to be activated.
See you on the Beach,
The Management, Soul Beach
Where every day is as beautiful as the last.
    What the hell? Soul Beach?
    I go straight onto Google, but nothing shows up. I try going directly to the website: soulbeach.org. My hands are shaking so much that I keep mistyping, but when I finally get it right and hit go the browser freezes. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. I feel like screaming at the screen, but I know Mum would hear me. So instead I whisper.
    ‘What does this mean, Meggie? Where the hell are you? Are you even there?’
    But of course there’s no answer. How could there be? I guess it’s two-nil to the sick bastard who must be loving the fact that I was dumb enough to respond to that first email.
    There’s a rushing in my ears, I’m so angry. I need to get out of here. Dunno where. Anywhere but in front of this bloody screen. I shut down Firefox and then . . .
    Oh my God.
    I stare at the desktop. I’ve had the same wallpaper forever – since before it all happened, a photo-collage of brilliant days with my mates, my parents, and, of course, my sister. In the centre of the screen is a shot of the two of us on a camping holiday in France, just after we won the fancy dress contest as Alice and the Mad Hatter. (Of course, Meggie got to be Alice, despite it being my name. She just looked the part.)
    Except, she’s not there any more. None of us are. The collage is gone, and in its place there’s a new image.
    Of the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen.

5
    Cara reads the email print out about fifty times before she says anything. Then, finally:
    ‘Sickos.’
    She pops another Nicorette gum into her mouth. Her mum’s a GP and has been slipping her a pack a week since school reported Cara for smoking before her GCSE Physics exam. What Mummy doesn’t know is that a) Cara bought her first packet of fags on her thirteenth birthday, and b) the gum doesn’t stop her smoking, it just keeps her going at break, as smoking anywhere on site now would get her permanently excluded. Two strikes