Jawbreaker 2

Sometimes even the sweetest candies are as sour as death inside.

Courtney Alice Shayne looked at her reflection in the floor-length mirror as she brushed her jet black hair. After being in a Correctional Centre for the past year, you'd think that she wouldn't care about how she looked. Wrong. Orange overalls definitely weren't her 'thing' at all, and she couldn't wait to finally be out. The day she had come home she felt so relieved to see all her clothes and make-up just how she'd left it before she was dragged off to hell.

It hadn't changed her one bit.

She went downstairs and into the kitchen where her mother and father were. They were sat at the breakfast table sipping mugs of steaming hot coffee and flicking through a day old newspaper. They didn't even look up as their daughter entered the room. Ever since they had found out that she had killed her best friend, Elizabeth Purr, they didn't want to speak to her.

She didn't care.

As she picked up her red leather handbag she turned around to look at her parents. She let out a sigh and didn't bother starting a conversation with them. On her way out of the door she picked up a slice of buttered toast for her journey to school.

God, even that stupid 'Correctional Centre' wasn't as boring as school. I wonder if everyone is still the same there, she thought as she walked over to her car which was awkwardly parked at the side of the road as usual. As she sat down on the cold leather seats of the silver convertible, her mind raced back to the day when she and her friends, Marcie Fox and Julie Freeman opened the trunk to reveal the dead, black and blue body of Liz Purr. Courtney shook her head, trying to get rid of the thoughts; she stepped out of the car and looked at it. She couldn't bear to sit in the again. Instead she decided that she'd take the bus from now on.



Courtney stood in the line for the school bus with several freshmen and one sophomore. One or two of them shuffled nervously away from her as she got out a compact mirror from her handbag.

"You've obviously heard the stories..." Courtney muttered, "Well guess what? I don't give a shit."

The sophomore stood next to Courtney obviously hadn't heard the stories – or had any idea who she was – looked over at her with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Is this your first day at school?" She smiled sweetly.

"I'm a senior," Courtney told her, "I don't look that young."

"I've never seen you at school before."

"I wasn't there last year."

"So it is your first day here!"

Courtney snapped her compact mirror shut and threw it back into her bag, annoyed, she replied, "No. I started here as a freshman, just like you did, last year I was in a teenage Correctional Facility Centre for killing my friend, you might have heard about her, Elizabeth Purr? Everybody loved Liz; she was rich, beautiful, popular, smart, sweet... perfect."

Courtney laughed as she watched the girl's eyes widen as she said it.

"Y-you're joking, right?" She stammered, edging away from her, "Liz Purr... was killed by you? She choked on a jawbreaker!"

"That's right, my dear, I put it there. Hell, I did it on accident! Nobody wants to kill their friend, do they? It was her birthday, me and my friends were having fun, and we put her in the back of my car. I put a jawbreaker in her mouth to stop her from screaming, and then put tape over it. We were gonna tie her to the lamppost in her bra and panties but when we opened the trunk..."

Her voice trailed off as the big yellow school bus pulled up to the curb and the doors opened. Courtney shrugged at the sophomore girl and got onto the bus. She sat right at the back on her own, staring at the words scribbled on the back of the seats. One sentence caught her eye in particular.

Courtney Shayne is a murderer.

Courtney put her head against the window, looking out at the houses they were passing. She couldn't really concentrate on anything though. Her stomach was churning.

Before long, the bus had pulled up outside Reagan High, the doors swung open and everyone got off, Courtney trailing behind at the back.



Once outside, Courtney recognised a lot of familiar faces. The jocks, the cheerleaders, the drama club... and the worst people possible.

Marcie Fox, Julie Freeman and Fern Mayo, also known as Vylette. They were looking in her direction. She just hoped they weren't looking directly at her. So she hurried up the steps and into the bustling hallways.

It felt a lot more comfortable inside, everyone was doing their own thing and nobody was paying any attention to her. Although if this was two years ago, she would have owned the hallways, people would have ran away in fear.

She approached her locker, there were several people stood in front of it, talking to each other.

"Excuse me," Courtney said through gritted teeth, "Can I get to my locker?"

"This is your locker?" A guy with sandy blonde hair asked.

"Yes. Why?" She said, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh, no reason," he and his friends smirked and walked off.

What are they smirking at? Courtney wondered, watching them walk off. They stopped outside some more lockers, staring at her.

She soon knew why.

Written on the front of her locker in shocking red paint was the word 'murderer'. She let out a little shriek as everyone started gathering around her locker chanting the word over and over again.

"Shut up!" She cried, "Just go away," she turned back to her locker and rubbed her hand across the paint; it was still wet and could rub off easily.

"Look who is back." A familiar voice declared.

Courtney turned around and saw Marcie, Julie and Fern right in front of her, they laughed in her face.

"I'm not scared of you guys," Courtney told them.

"Oh yeah? We'll just see about that then." Marcie grinned.