Page 11 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Eleven

Saffron

Nell’s breathless, her dark hair dishevelled as she answers. “We are at a castle. Who knows what kind of medieval devices they have strung up on their walls?”

Her eyes flick to the side to meet mine and then it’s too late – we’re laughing laughs imbued with just a smidge of hysteria. Once we’ve managed to get hold of ourselves, I say, “Should we get out of here? While I don’t think the penalty for apple crimes would be getting handcuffed in a dungeon—”

“Kinky.”

I ignore that as best I can. “I’d rather not risk it.”

“All right, fine. Location number two?” Nell offers me her arm.

I link my left arm through hers. “Location number two.”

We’re walking (quite hastily) back down the hill towards the road when I realise that I’m still holding my phone, the camera still rolling.

I press stop and untangle myself from Nell so that I can look at the video as we walk.

It starts innocently enough, just an aesthetic shot of the branch bending down under my hand towards Nell so that she can pick the apple, but quickly descends into chaos after the abrupt ‘EXCUSE ME!’.

There’s a minute of footage of shoes flashing in and out of frame over earth and gravel, hysterical giggling breaths and the sound of pounding feet against the ground.

Nell laughs so hard at the clip that she almost fully drops to the floor, and I have to drag her up, also laughing harder than I have in a while.

“Well? You wanted to make a TikTok of the day. That’s award-winning footage right there.”

“I’ll make sure I dedicate the award to you.”

“You’d better,” she says. “And I want a director’s credit too.”

“Your ambitions really know no bounds, do they?”

“Nope!”

We pass the next ten minutes or so chatting amiably about our adventures so far as we walk away from Sizergh and towards…

“TA-DA!” Nell gestures with jazz hands at a giant sign for a maize maze.

“Ohhh.” I nod my head. “I get the ‘a maze d’ thing now.”

“Took you long enough.”

“HELLO, DAREDEVILS!”

Nell nearly jumps out of her skin as a bespectacled youth with a lanyard lunges towards us.

“Are you ready to take on –” they pause for very well-rehearsed dramatic effect – “THE MAZE?”

“I regret everything and I would like to leave,” Nell mutters to me as she shows them our tickets on her phone.

“What was that?” the bespectacled youth asks, looking buoyant and inquisitive.

“ Absolutely we are,” I say. It’s not this poor person’s fault that they’ve had extensive ‘interacting with the general public’ training.

“EXCELLENT!” they yell. “Well, daredevils, my name’s Sunny and I’m going to be your maze guardian today!”

Nell throws me a pleading glance like a puppy begging for cheese.

“So, our maze can take anywhere from forty-five minutes to two hours to complete. Here are your maps. If you get lost, you can open these and go to your nearest exit.” They move as if to hand us the envelopes then retract their hands.

“BUT complete the maze without opening the envelopes, and you might just win a prize!”

“Excellent,” Nell says brusquely, taking the envelopes. “We will not be opening them. We will be completing the maze on merit, and we will be winning that prize.”

“Fighting talk.” Sunny grins. They make a sweeping gesture with both arms towards an opening in what looks like an endless haze of maize. “ Let the maze begin .”

I follow Nell in, gazing up at what must be at least two metres of maize looming above us.

“OK,” Nell says. “How hard can a maze be? I don’t think the Hunger Games reference was necessary. We’re essentially just going on a very wiggly walk. An amble even.”

“Poor Sunny, it’s not their fault. They must train them to be—”

“Insufferable?”

“I was going to say enthusiastic.”

“Potayto, potahto.”

“Speaking of starches,” I segue, “this maize is impressive.”

“I feel a bit claustrophobic to be honest.” Nell looks up.

“I’ve never actually done a maize maze before, but it sounded like a fun autumn activity.

This is the only one I could find that wasn’t a Halloween maze with people with fake chainsaws lurking at dead ends.

My poor heart took enough of a beating when Sunny jumped out at us.

I don’t think introducing more drama students with weapons into the mix would help. ”

She’s being flippant but I notice she’s still holding a hand over her chest and remember what she told me about a condition she has last year. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m all good. Just having a slight issue getting my heart rate back to normal. But there’s nothing new there.”

“You have something called postural orso…” My voice trails off into guilty silence as I realise I can’t remember the name.

I should know this; it’s an important thing about one of my closest friends.

And she’s being so lovely to me. The least I could do is remember the name of a condition that affects her everyday life.

“Ooh, going for its full name, impressive.” She does genuinely sound a bit impressed, but the guilt stays sitting (or ambling) with me. “It’s postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome,” she carries on, “but you can just call it PoTS. I do.”

I remember now. Vivvie made a joke about how, as a group, we’ll never be short of cooking utensils what with Nell having PoTS and her being pan.

Casper then complained that when he made a pan joke Vivvie punched him in the stomach.

To which Vivvie responded, “Sí, pero it’s funny when I do it.

When you do it, it makes me want to commit violence.

Now shut up, or your ‘tummy’ is getting it again. ”

“Is there anything I can do to help, anything you need?”

Nell’s still walking quite slowly, as opposed to her usual stomping around.

“Actually, would you mind if we sat for a minute?” she asks, dropping to the ground.

“Not at all.” I sit down opposite her.

Nell smiles gratefully. “Thanks. Sorry, it’s just tricky getting things back to normal when they kick off, and the fleeing the castle and getting jump-scared combo have definitely done that.

It happens all the time, though, so don’t worry.

My heart just starts going really fast, I feel super dizzy and my brain gets kind of …

foggy. I’m fine, though. And sitting down really helps.

And salt, salt’s good.” She tilts her head to one side.

“Don’t suppose you’re hiding some crisps or perhaps a giant pretzel anywhere on your person, are you? ”

“Sorry,” I say with a jokey tone, though I feel genuinely sorry that I don’t have anything. “Ordinarily, I don’t go anywhere without a giant pretzel tucked in my back pocket, but you’ve caught me on an off day.”

“Shame.” She takes a few deep breaths. “OK. I think I can be good now.” She stands up (slowly).

“Can be?” I say, also getting up. “You don’t have to be. We can sit for as long as you need.”

“Nah, we’ve got a maze to complete, records to beat.”

“I don’t recall anything about setting a new record. And all right, but you tell me the second you need anything. You don’t have to pretend you’re OK if you’re not – not with anyone, but especially not with me.”

Nell turns her head towards me as we walk, eyes a little creased around the edges as she surveys me.

“Thank you,” she says, and there’s something in her tone that makes me wonder what she’s thinking.

She turns away from me again, focusing straight ahead on our route.

“I hope you know the same thing too.” This time her tone is airy, but there’s a pointed edge in it that causes my heart rate to rise.

What does she mean? She can’t know anything about my SAD, can she? Maybe I need to be more careful. I can’t let anything slip.

I do know what I just said to Nell. I know I’m a hypocrite.

But this is different.

Nell has a physical, tangible condition. Someone examined her and made a note on a chart – no decent person would ever reject her for that, for something she can’t help.

I take a second and then put on that perfect smile, the one I practised in the mirror for weeks before uni started last year, and say, “Thanks! I appreciate that.”

Nell’s silent for a second before saying slowly, “You’re welcome. You know … if there ever is—”

“Ah,” I interrupt as we come to a stop in front of a wall of maize. “Dead end.”

We retrace our steps and I get my phone out to film a few bits, partly because I need to, and partly because I hope it distracts Nell.

When I point it at her and say, “Say hi, Nell!” she responds with, “Hi, Nell,” and an awkward wave.

She’s not the most natural person in front of the camera and, once again, I feel guilty that she’s doing all this for me.

Half an hour and many more dead ends later, it doesn’t feel like we’re getting any closer to the centre. It’s hard to tell, given that we can only see maize and the October sky looming far above us, but I’m sure we’ve not taken enough turns inwards to be anywhere near the middle.

“How much longer do you think it’ll take?” I ask.

Nell shrugs. “Who’s to say? Though it does seem like the maze world record may be slipping out of our grasp, worse luck.”

“If it’s too much longer, do you think we should—”

“NO.” Nell crosses her arms tightly across her chest. “No, I do not. We will not be opening the envelopes. Not for a long time, not ever.”

I smile, despite my legs beginning to ache from standing for quite so long. “OK. If you insist.”

“I do.”