She sits, the laughter rolling over her like ocean waves. Tears prick her eyes, making them sparkle behind thick glasses.
'Four eyes!'
She ignores the comment. She is used to it. It bounces off her like leaves to the earth, barely scratching the surface. But the scar beneath runs deep.
She leans over her Runes, frowning as she tries to shut out the catcalls and braying laughter. Suddenly the world blurs.
She blinks, confused. Then - realisation.
'My glasses…' she mumbles. That's what they call her. Mumble. She has other names. She cares for none of them.
Fat. Ugly. Stupid. Moaning Myrtle. Miserable Myrtle. Moaning Myrtle.
She squints, unnecessarily. She knows who has taken her glasses. It is the same culprit it always is, the one who took her school bag last week and hid it. The one who laughed loudest when she received a T in Potions.
Olive Hornby.
'Look, I'm Speccy!' she cackles, green cat's eyes alight with malicious glee behind her booty.
'Here, Myrtle.' She throws the glasses back casually and turns to her cronies.
Myrtle goes numb. She can put up with a lot of things. But Olive has just spat her name out so carelessly, Myrtle wonders if she is really there. If she really even exists. Her name has been thrown out like a nothing, the ghost of a person so inconsequential that their name is hardly worth saying. And no one else has noticed. If they did, no one cares. They all laugh along with Olive, the worst of them all.
Is she really so invisible? Cellophane. That should have been her name. Because no one knows she is there. They all see through her. She stares at her wrist. Beneath the vanilla skin she can see the blue veins, pulsing blood. Her skin looks paper-thin. If they cut her, would she bleed?
If she bled, would anyone care?
She stands abruptly. The tears flow freely now, a sign of her defeat. She has never let them see her cry. Her tears have always been kept behind the dam of her eyelids, lurking just beyond sight. If anyone bothered to look closely before, they would have seen the red rims around them. If anyone had cared to listen, they would have heard her muffled cries lost in the downy folds of her duvet. The shock on Olive's face now is almost worth staying for.
Almost.
She pushed through the classmates who have tormented her so. She runs blindly, not caring where she ends up. Just away.
When she finally stops running, she looks around. She is in a bathroom. The girls bathroom on the second floor, luckily.
She curls up in a cubicle, perched on cold porcelain, and cries her sorry heart out.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Hours have slipped by, silky through fingers. Her eyes are dry, sand-sprayed orbs of red in a face lost to blotchiness. Narrowed in irritation as she scrabbles at the lock, to tell the intruder to go away, use his own toilet, leave her alone.
She never gets far enough.
A sea of yellow, punctuated with two great ebony pools.
She gasps, mouth turned to a perfect O.
But the scream never leaves her throat.
And her eyes see nothing now.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
She can see the little girl clearly. She wonders why no one has come to help her. The girl has been lying on the floor for so long….
Myrtle can't see her face. It's covered by clouds of brown curls. But her skin is milky white, the colour of the snow that frosts her windows. And she is so still…
But she can't help the girl on the floor up. She tried at first. But her fingers, try as they might, could not seem to grasp her. They slipped through her, smoke through a screen, and Myrtle gave up long ago.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
The bathroom door creaks open. A head pops around the frame.
'Myrtle?' The voice is hesitant. Unsure. 'Myrtle, are you in here? Stop being stupid and come out, it was just a joke.'
The scorn in the voice tells Myrtle unmistakably who owns it.
Olive Hornby walks in. Sees the girl on the floor. Runs to her, flipping her onto her back.
Shaking fingers pull back the tangled curls to reveal an utterly still face. Her dead eyes stare, glassy and lifeless; her mouth is set in a perfect O.
Olive screams.
Myrtle follows suit. But hers is a scream full of anger and shock. A terrible, blood chilling scream. A scream of vowed revenge.
Because the girl on the floor is Myrtle.
She is a ghost.