The Conversation That Started It All

By Eve Hayden

December, One Week Before Mocks

Mr Granger's (cover) History Lesson

"Some people deserve to die," Eden said casually.

That's where it all started, that disturbing little sentence.

"Definitely," I agreed, scrawling down the notes Mr Granger had put on the board. "Like Hitler and Stalin."

Maybe some context would help. We were in History which really gives all the context you may need. We were doing some revision on the Germany topic for impending mocks, reading out of textbooks with worksheets and the lot. Our teacher was absent and the cover teacher told us that she knew nothing of History so we were on our own. You get the idea. And quite a bit of what we were doing was focused on Hitler's dictatorship. So we were talking about Hitler.

"Do you think they would've killed him if he hadn't offed himself?" she asked, still casual as anything.

I shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe. They could've locked him in a cell to rot and thrown away the key."

The whole conversation was beginning to morph into one we'd had the year before, on capital punishment in English after reading some Sherlock Holmes story. My class had terrified our teacher with slightly graphic descriptions on how we would punish someone for taking a life.

"I think some people really deserve to die a painful death."

I was getting a bit worried now. Eden and I had never talked much see. Strange considering we'd gone to the same nursery, the same primary school, grown up mere streets away from each other before ending up next to each other in Mr Granger's GCSE History class. She'd always been on the edges of things, a loner by choice - slightly cooler than a loner by everyone else's choice. Our conversations were strictly limited to pleasantries and answers before, the in depth class discussions awkward and filled with silences.

"Like who?"

She shrugged. "Mr Granger."

Our teacher?

"Why him?" I turned the page and made a note.

"I have my reasons," she said darkly.

It couldn't be that bad, right? He was a teacher for Christ's sake! I've heard awful gossip about a teacher, of course. Lorrie Parton told me about Miss Reeves leaving her husband for a guy who broke up with her two months later the year before. It was true too. But Mr Granger, who excitedly gave us updates on his puppies, who raved about the new Marvel films and hung up a string of fairy lights in his classroom every Christmas? He was the kind of teacher everyone knew and everyone liked. If he had a heart attack and died suddenly, people would cry and write nice things on his memory board.

It wasn't a heat attack that killed him but everything else is true. And I'll get to what happened later.

"Anyone in your life you want dead?" she asked.

I paused, about to snort and tell her that she was insane. "Maybe Josh? Not like dead. Just put in his place."

She nodded again. Everyone knew about the ugly breakup that occurred two weeks before. And by everyone I meant everyone and their nan and their nan's hairdresser's cousin. Or at least, that's what it felt like. Josh and I avoided each other like the plague and I was desperately trying to delete him from my life. Permanently. Which is actually pretty hard when you're in half the same lessons together and live five minutes away from each other.

"How would you even go about killing someone?" I said aloud.

Eden paused. "Give them something that they're allergic to? I don't know."

"They could fall off the bridge," I suggested. "Hypothetically, obviously."

People fell off that bridge all the time. The water of the river beneath wasn't deep enough to drown in, not unless you were a serious midget. A girl in Year Twelve would commit suicide their that Christmas holiday, tumbling into icy water at just enough of an angle to break her neck. It wasn't uncommon to slip off the riverbank into the water, probably sliding onto your bum in a very undignified manner. But you wouldn't die. Not unless you jumped at an angle.

"What about the rocks?" she said.

The jagged rocks on the other side of the bridge were a horror story. It was part land, owned by rich people and often trespassed by drunken teens who were looking for a cool place to snog, snap Instagram pictures and carve their initials into. They were easy enough to get onto, a winding path led to the top on the other side of the bridge. And if you fell from there, you'd die on impact. Water becomes rock solid and you're a goner. That's what Dad warned me anyway. I doubted it, to be honest, hearing stories of cliff diving and stuff. But still.

"Yeah, just push Josh off the side," I said.

"And put poison in Granger's coffee," Eden continued in what I thought was a jokey manner. "But you'd be the first one they'd suspect for Josh. And my hate for Granger isn't exactly hidden."

It was to me, but I let that slide. I didn't know her very well, like I said.

"We should just commit each other's murders," I joked. "No way they'd suspect you for Josh or me for Granger. We aren't even close."

"Winning idea." Eden accompanied it with a laugh, like it was a joke.

But it couldn't have been a joke to her. Because Josh is dead. His body is in the river, like he jumped from the rocks or the bridge at an angle, we don't know yet.

But just like I said, he's in the river and he's dead.