on being the butt of jokes by all the mediocre people around me.
I had to do something to make everyone start to respect me.
I took one of the tablets that the school doctor had prescribed me. Those tablets really helped me to relax and feel more certain of my decisions. I can’t remember what they were called but I do remember that they helped me.
I got everything ready for my revenge.
I went to the kitchen without anyone noticing.
The cooks had gone home.
After cleaning up they had two hours off. I knew that. I had studied their routine.
This was my chance.
I picked up the knife, took it to my dormitory and hid it under my pillow.
I was ready to kill Sebastián. I had it all planned. When he went to bed, I would stab him in the chest with the knife.
I went to the bathroom and waited.
I was nervous. I didn’t know if I would be brave enough to do it.
I was filled with hate. I had never killed, not even an animal. My courage was seeping away but I had to do it. I took another tablet to calm myself down.
Midnight struck and I went up to the dormitory trying not to make any noise.
I opened the door that never closed properly; it almost creaked but I didn’t let it. I took a step forward, managing not to trip over the shoe rack, and made my way towards Sebastián’s bed. He was fast asleep. I lifted my hand ready to plunge the knife into his chest but my courage deserted me, I couldn’t do it, I had a sudden attack of morality that wouldn’t let me do it, or perhaps I was just scared of what might happen.
I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t brave enough.
I put the knife away under my pillow and went to my sanctuary.
The next morning the cleaning lady found the knife in my bed and informed the headmistress.
The headmistress sent for me straight away.
I went into her office and found her waiting with the bullwhip in her hand.
She didn’t ask me what the knife was doing in my bed, nor did she let me speak. She just started to whip me so hard that I ended up in the boarding school’s sick bay.
I hated the headmistress and after that thrashing I just wanted to kill her, although she did me a favour in a way since in the sick bay at least I finally had a rest from Sebastián’s group and for once I could sleep in a bed with a blanket and a pillow, which I kissed imagining it was Carla.
I was discharged after five days.
I dressed in my uniform, picked up my school rucksack and headed for the classroom but there was nobody there, the chairs were tucked neatly under the desks, there were papers on the floor; it looked as though nobody had been there for a while. I went to look for my classmates and found them in the dormitory.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Miss Rosa, who was crying.
‘Someone killed Sebastián! Someone killed him!’
This news didn’t have much effect on me as I hated him and the rest of my classmates.
‘Come here, Lorenzo,’ commanded the headmistress who had spotted my presence and the fact that I was smiling.
I approached her and she promptly frogmarched me to her office.
‘You killed Sebastián, didn’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t do it,’ I answered.
Sebastián’s chest had the kitchen knife stuck in it and as I had taken it five days previously she was perfectly entitled to think that I had taken his life.
‘You’re a murderer,’ she said.
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I don’t know. How would I know?’
‘You had the knife. Why did you steal it?’
I didn’t reply.
‘Answer me. If you don’t answer me, I’ll give you another thrashing.’
I still didn’t reply.
She didn’t thrash me but she locked me in a room she called the punishment room, for incorrigible children, for rebellious children like me. I don’t know what happened outside, nor did I want to know. Fear overwhelmed me; being alone in that dark room, the darkness terrified me, I didn’t like being locked in. I think I suffer from claustrophobia. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t kill Sebastián.
Someone opened the door and the bright light prevented me from seeing who it was. When my eyes adjusted to the light I saw her, it was the headmistress, she was drinking a cup of coffee and looking at me closely.
‘What am I going to do with you, Lorenzo?’ she sighed as she sipped her coffee. ‘You are too troublesome and I am not willing to put up with you any longer, you don’t have anybody and I am not going to carry on looking after you.’
She looked me straight in the eyes as she drank another mouthful of coffee. Her look was a mixture of loneliness, bitterness and resentment built up over many years.
‘You are a problem child. Nobody wants you. You are a blight on society.’
Her words hurt and humiliated me but the worst thing was, they were true.
‘But I remember now that you do have someone.’
And then she stopped. She dropped her coffee cup and fell to the floor.
I didn’t understand what was happening or know what to do. She might have fainted or be dead – I didn’t want to find out. I ran from her office without knowing what had happened to the headmistress. Nobody would have believed my version anyway.
I ran all over the building looking for a gap in the bars that I could squeeze through but there was no chance of escaping. I was desperate, imagining myself locked up in jail for something I didn’t do. My head was spinning, I felt sick, I didn’t know what to do. I heard footsteps approaching rapidly and without a second thought I ran, looking for somewhere to hide. I found myself staring at my classmate’s coffin and realised that perhaps it was my only hope of escape.
There was no other way to get out of that place.
I remembered something the headmistress had said. ‘Only the dead get out of here.’
IX
The footsteps were getting closer and I decided to take Sebastián’s place. It was not pleasant but if the headmistress was right, then I would leave as a dead person.
I removed Sebastián’s body as quickly as I could,
