Shangri-La

The face looked almost like you could laugh at it, grinning down in
a crappy, dark photo from the projection screen. Heather Norton - her
frumpy hairdo, her dumb grin lost in that fat face with no chin or a
load of them. What hope was there for her anyway? Soppy, stupid music
plays, probably the kind of music Heather would have liked. I dunno,
her parents were like, about a million years old.

'I've called a special assembly for a very sad reason of which you are
all aware' started the Head, unusually in a sombre black suit and a
grey tie. We all feel a bit uncomfortable.

'Whether we knew her or not, Heather's death is a loss to all of us, a
loss to life.'
But how could it be? No one knew Heather. God, I knew her best of
everyone. I probably spoke to her more often than everyone else in the
school put together, including the teachers. More stuff from the head
about missing her, shortness of life, importance of memory, blah, blah.
More being uncomfortable. How can we miss her when we hardly noticed
her there in the first place? Some people at the back of the hall
giggle about something. Everyone looks bored.

Head struggles to find something to say about Heather - I feel angry,
they ought to have tried, it was their job to notice her and stuff. At
least they might have had something to say to her. What could we have
talked to her about? All she liked was ponies and she actually went
green bowling with her mum and dad at the weekend, for God's sake. That
was her idea of fun.

'Full of life' the Head says. No life, more like.

It was Jimmy who first got a hold of the word 'heifer' from a book we
did in English - some kind of cow or something. It was too perfect not
to use - 'Heifer' Norton, c'mon, it was a good one. Jimmy found her
'secret' notepad that she'd written 'Secret, Don't Open' like a little
kid. Can you believe it, she, 14 years old, had written all these
stories about a good ghost pony called 'Shangri-La' who comes down to
earth to help people and little ponies with their problems? Maybe she
was a bit retarded or something.

Kerry talked to her a bit and stuff. We were kind of worried because it
might've meant that Heather would start hanging out with her and me and
Mariah and make us look like a bunch of saddos. Kerry got the message.
Look, it would've screwed everything up is she'd hung around us, we'd
never've gotten rid of her and Tony wouldn't've gone out with me and
things. This stuff is important.

Her mum and dad should have tried harder, too. Didn't they look at what
other kids were wearing? Their haircuts? Shouldn't they have noticed
she didn't have friends and not just let her hang around with lots of
old, boring people? I guess that's what she was like - a boring old
person who never does anything interesting. And they shouldn't've given
her so much food. Maybe they fed her whole cows or something.

All this being nice about her is making me angry. I want to stand up in
this assembly and shout 'Why should I care?' I want to graffiti around
the school 'Heifer Norton was a fat cow and now she's a dead cow' just
because they so want me to be nice about her. What do they want me to
do about it? What are they expecting from me? Tears? Guilt? I'm sorry,
I don't do guilt, I can't be blamed for what someone else did. I didn't
stand there and make her do it or anything, I didn't force the bloody
tablets down her throat! If she was like that, she was like that. She
might've done it even if we were all 'nice' to her, there's nothing to
say she wouldn't.

Me and Mariah look at each other on the way out and we can't help but
break out laughing. And suddenly I feel a bit nervous. Maybe sad.