Died Blondes
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Coming Soon
Queen of all the Knowing World
Text copyright© 2015 Jon Jacks
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Chapter 1
Some sleepover: we’ll all be sleeping forever, thanks to Bet’s ‘just slightly out of date tuna’ sandwiches.
Bet, the maid, is downstairs in the kitchen. Just as dead as we are.
Serves her right: thinking she’d help herself to a spare she’d made.
As for who gets the blame – mum for stocking the tuna in the fridge, or Bet for using it – that’ll be for the courts to decide, I suppose.
Mind you, we all still manage to look quite pretty as we lie on my bed.
Our blonde hair, well, you know: it all looks very ethereal. The way it splays out from our heads across the quilt.
Sort of angelic, in a way. You know, like we’ve already got our halos prepared. (Then again, all three of us always knew we had absolutely fabulous hair.)
I think we’ll make really gorgeous looking angels!
Admittedly, if I’m getting a tiny bit precious about it all – and of course, we always simply have to, if we’re seeking to always look perfect – then I’d have to honestly say I would have preferred it if Chloe hadn’t worn that top!
It really is way too garish: it clashes with my rather more tastefully tinted bedclothes.
On the other hand, all our makeup’s just so right! Thank God we’d been carefully experimenting with all that new Lancôme stuff Pearl had brought over!
It hasn’t even smudged! Which, naturally, would have been a sheer nightmare!
I wouldn’t want to be seen dead in the simplified makeup we’re forced to wear at school!
Thankfully, too, there isn’t a single stain to be seen on my new translithic zirconia crowns!
My smile looks perfectly beatific!
Oh oh: I’ve just noticed, though – Chloe has the very slightest of dribbles hanging out of the side of her mouth.
She’d be mortified to see herself like that. If, like me, she’s looking down on all this, she’ll be wishing there was something she could do about that!
Which is a good point, actually.
Where are they?
I mean: I couldn’t bear to be parted from them!
*
Wait a minute: do I detect that I’m still breathing?
Yes! I think I am!
Maybe that’s why I’m still here, hovering over my bed rather than on my way to heaven.
I’m struggling to hold onto life – isn’t that how they talk about things like this in the papers? On the news?
Or is that when stars are struggling against drinking too much? Or doing too many drugs? Or too many women or men, or whatever it is they’re addicted to.
My struggle with my demons. Yeah, that’s it.
So what is it you say to describe how you’re fighting against dying?
Oh sh-ugar!
I’ve just thought!
If I pull through, how’s that going to sit with Chloe and Pearl’s parents?
Mum’s tuna kills their kids. Yet spares me.
The court case could go on for years! All these high-flying lawyers and–
Wow! And what could possibly be wrong with that?
I mean, I’ll be famous!
In the papers! On TV.
Maybe even get myself on the front of some classy mag! Like maybe even Vogue!
There’ll be appearances on talk shows too, of course! You know, showing how distraught I am over the loss of my best friends. That kind of thing.
Wow, how cool is that?
*
Hmn, this is weird: the bit where I’m being drawn back into my body.
It’s like putting on some old, frumpy dress you’ve found in the wardrobe. It all seems a bit too heavy; too tight under the armpits.
Like it could do with a good wash too. Despite the shower I’d had only a couple of hours ago.
Well. I am glad you’re the one that said that!
Chloe? What’re you doing here? This is my body!
As your mum’s tuna’s to blame for all this, I think we have every right to be here!
Pearl? You too? We can’t all come back to life in my body!
Well I did say I thought those sandwiches smelt a bit fishy!
It was tuna! It’s supposed to smell fishy!
Yeah, but quite obviously, not that fishy!
Oh come on! Surely you’re not going to give me a hard time over this? How about blaming Bet?
At least she’s still dead! Whereas you’ve come out of it all okay!
With a body more cramped with occupants than a downtown slum? I don’t think so!
Have you seen the state of that ceiling?
Lying on the bed, we’re all looking directly up at my bedroom ceiling. Which, now that I’m seeing it like this, I’ve got to admit wouldn’t get us into a Home And Gardens feature.
No wonder your mum’s tuna was so dodgy if that’s what she calls cleaning!
Mum doesn’t go around preparing sandwiches on our ceilings, right? Besides, Bet made the sandwiches. And she’s responsible for cleaning all–
Right! So there you are then! Hygiene obviously doesn’t rank high in this household.
Why are you too being so incredibly catty all of a sudden?
Because we’re dead, Amina! Or haven’t you noticed?
*
Chapter 2
After a while, I – or should that now be we? – feel well enough to dizzily stumble to my (surely not our?) feet.
Oh, before you call for help – I did notice that I was dribbling a little–
A little? I think you mean a lot. Urrghh; totally gross! Tiny bits of tuna–
Yes, yes, thank you, Pearl! That’s exactly why I want Amina to tidy me up a little before anybody else sees me!
Well why she’s at it, I did notice that I looked a bit of a fright too, what with–
Don’t you two think I should be calling an ambulance? I mean, there might still be a spark of life in–
There’s no spark of life in me!
Thanks to your mum’s tuna!
Trust us on this one – there are no signs of life in us!
That’s why we’re all in here.
Personally, I’d much prefer my own bod–
Amina! I never realised what small breasts you have!
That’s right! Do you pad out–
She does, she does!
And I never knew!
Oh this is terrible, terrible!
I wish I were dead!
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*
Naturally, Chloe and Pearl’s parents seem to wish I were dead too.
At the funerals, they don’t look exactly ecstatic that I’m still wandering around. Not while their own little darlings are lying all prim and proper in silk-lined caskets.
(In case anyone out there’s bothering to wonder, Bet’s funeral wasn’t quite so plush or well attended. Bit of a bore, really. But naturally, everyone accepted my excuse that I was wearing my headphones because I was still all way too emotional to listen to the speeches and what have you.)
The thing about the funerals is that they’re complete eye-openers when it comes to revealing how our parents see us. Or at least, like to think of us.
We’re still little more than toddlers, far as they’re concerned.
All these photographs they put on show; all sixteen-going-on-twelve sorta shots. They’ve really dredged up the most sickly shots out of their albums. There are My Favourite Ponies everywhere, along with ringlets and sparkly headbands.
Horror of horrors, they even have shots of us all playing together before we had blonde hair!
Unbelievable!
And the tunes they play!
They’re supposedly C and P’s favourites. Which they might well have been when they around three!
I’m surprised they haven’t included one of those songs complete with animal noises. All a moo, moo there, an oink oink here. Or sung by chipmunks, with higher-pitched voices than someone dieting on helium.
The bodies are laid out with the most hideous makeup. Like it’s all been layered on by some brats with their first Makeup Doll Head!
(I have never worn eye shadow like that!)
I’ll never live it down. At least Chloe and Pearl are dead. They don’t have to suffer the repercussions from all this!
Most of the kids from school are filing past all this trying to hide their sniggers.
Sure, they’ve all got all their ‘oh it’s all so sad’ expressions off to a pat. Some of ’em too, I reckon, are even pretty genuine about it all, bless their cotton socks.
But as soon as they think no one’s watching, out comes the raised eyebrows, the horrified grimaces, the mumbled ‘oh-my-God’s.
Me, I’m sitting there trying to look all grief-stricken while C and P constantly harp on about how I should be rushing around changing it all! Every now and again there’s an argument about who’s drawn the best of the right-on crowd.
Normally any disagreement like this is one I’d try and keep out of. Keep schtum about my own opinions. But it’s not easy doing that when you’re like the corner of the room they’ve chosen to settle their tiff in.
What am I supposed to do?
I mean, if we were glorious angelic beings, we could simply hover unseen by Tyler Robins and see what he really thinks, couldn’t we? But as everyone’s decided to set up home in my body, well, every time Tyler sees me he puts on the required ‘oh it’s all so sad’ frown, doesn’t he?
So I’ve no idea what his real thoughts on all this could be.
If you need to know all this, I grumble to C and P, why don’t you just go flying off somewhere to check up on him? You can always come back later: it’s not like I’m going anywhere.
If we could, we would!
But we’re trapped here now, it seems.
But you’re spirits! There’s got to be some advantage in that!
Maybe there would’ve been if we hadn’t all rushed into your skinny body.
I’m not skinny. It’s just that I keep to my diet!
If you’re trapped in a body, you’re not a true spirit, are you?
Spirits aren’t bound by space and time!
Oh, so where’d you read this, Dr Einstein?
I do read, you know! It was those really famous books; you know, the WhiteWraith’s trilogy? Well, I read two of them anyway: well, one and a half.
And that’s our sum knowledge of how it works in the spirit world, is it?
I saw the first Harry Potter movie.
Just great; you could have all these like amazing spirit superpowers for all we know! We could be out saving the world! Even have a superhero comic named after us!
A collector’s figure! They’d make one of them of us!
And a movie! Who’d play us, do you think?
Charlize Theron?
Dream on, Amina.
Yeah, if it had been my body we’d all got together in, then–
Wait, wait! Look who’s here again!
No way!
Yes way!
It’s Graham Forest; showing up at Pearl’s funeral, just as he had at Chloe’s.
Graham thick-as-a Forest.
As if we hadn’t made his poor life miserable enough – and, let’s face it, it was already pretty miserable before we showed up in his life. (When you’ve had a near death experience, it makes you revalue your own life and admit that, you know, maybe you weren’t exactly good for every single second.) Yet here he is once more; weeping and all quivering-anxiety, like he’s mourning the loss of his very best friends.
Hey, maybe we were his best friends!
Yuk!
I mean, I could understand it if he was here to gloat!
Maybe he was some sort of closet masochist all along.
You mean maybe he enjoyed our teasing? That takes all the fun out of it!
Come on guys: at least he’s shown up for your funerals!
Yeah, unlike that good for nothing Drake!
Dave, he’s called Dave – he just calls himself Drake!
He prefers Drake!
Yeah, like I prefer Nefertiti – but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, does it?
Okay, okay; but look, is Graham really the sort you want at your funeral?
God no!
Look at him though: he looks genuinely upset!
It’s true: Graham always manages to look like he’s the loneliest man in the world. Today, however, he looks like he truly believes he’s the last and only man left alive.
He’s the sort who nervously shuffles around everywhere: looks startled as soon as someone talks to him. But here he’s just about tearing his hair out. Weeping and mumbling deliriously to himself.
It’s all an act!
No one can act that good! Not even – who is the hottest actor around at the moment?
Perhaps, you know, he’s just remembering everything we ever did to him. Poor geek!
Hmn, I suppose that would make anyone breakdown in tears.
You know, we really weren’t very nice people, were we?
I suppose we could be pretty scandalous.
Hmn, yeah...
That’s enough re-evaluating for today, don’t you think?
Yeah!
Re-evaluating? I thought it was revaluing?
*
If the funerals weren’t to our liking, the investigation into who was responsible for the killer tuna was, in Chloe’s words, ‘a travesty.’
I know what you mean! Nothing like you see on TV; not one decent guy amongst them!
Actually I meant that Amina’s mum got off scot free!
Weren’t you listening? Mum said it was fresh!
Sure it was fresh! When it was caught ten years ago!
And weren’t you listening to the bit where Dr Buttface said it was laced with anti-histoemean something or other?
Yeah, something that’s not good for you!
I think, Chloe, that you mean Dr Rutledge.
So are you saying you didn’t even see his face?
I’m saying this doctor said Mum’s tuna should have been fine.
Only it wasn’t; hence why we’re all here, right?
Or, Amina, are you saying every tuna sandwich produces results like this?
He couldn’t explain how it ended up giving everyone scumboy or whatever it was poisoning!
As we’re filing out – sorry, as I’m walking out – of the hall used to announce the verdict (leaving Mum and Dad behind to have yet anoth
er scuffle with C and P’s parents), we all spot Graham forest sneaking off through some nearby bushes.
What’s he doing here?
He’s not allowed in, is he–
I think she means, why’s he want to know who’s been held responsible for your deaths?
But he couldn’t hear, could he? As I’ve just pointed out, he’s not allow–
He’s wearing headphones.
Oh yeah.
Who but the school’s resident geek would know how to set up some way of listening in?
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Sure! He’s got turn-ups! And they’re way too high above his sandals.
No! I mean who do we know who’d know how to turn fresh tuna into a killer with these – these whatever they ares?
The school’s resident, know-it-all geek.
But why would he want to kill us?
This is the bit where, normally, we’d be turning to gawk at Chloe. But, of course, we can’t.
Why shouldn’t he kill us! Which day out of the last three years do you want me to recall to prove a possible motive?
Hey, you’re right! I always knew there was something about that guy I didn’t like!
*
Perhaps we should just gang up on him and force him t–
There aren’t three of us anymore: not really, anyway.
Yeah, there’s just me.
And she’s just a titch.
Now if it had been you, Chloe–
I am so totally not a titch! I’m only a few inches smaller than you – well, than you were, anyway.
Amina, we’ve now seen you checking your height in the bathroom mirror, remember?
You should remember, ’cos we we’re complaining that–
Oh, so you two never went to the bathroom, right?
Sure, Amina; but normally I’d be showering in my own body, thanks!
And we’re only trying to make sure you dress in the right things! Rather than that horrendous top we’ve never liked!
What do they say about never moving into the same place with friends? Well I know precisely what they mean now!
Look, look! Girls, girls! We’ve got to stop being mean to each other, right? We need to figure out some way of stopping whatever Graham’s up to, right?
Which we’ve never done before, right?
And it’s a bit late to stop the bit where he kills you two.
But if it is Graham, then he tired to kill all three of us.