Later, when Tulip finally decided to regularly attend school Natalie become worried about her obnoxious behavior in class as she always managed to find some way to be sent outside into the hallway. Natalie didn’t know why she did, but Tulip seemed to enjoy it whether she was scaring the staff half to death, refusing to work or even spoiling all the fun actives like the ropes and field trips.
Natalie felt very undecided and confused with her parent’s decision of sending her to Heathcote and on the days just before the deadline she felt like a bird on an extremely hot wire, every few minutes she expected to hear her dad say “well Heathcote it is” and then to see him send off the note.
Soon Natalie had become so influenced by Tulip that she too had become bad in and out of school, finding harder and harder ways to get into trouble, even going as far as conning their way into other people’s houses.
As the flames of the chicken shed leapt higher and higher Natalie was suddenly pulled down into a ditch by Tulip as she heard the fire sirens, and then suddenly out of the whirl of confusion everything just clicked into place. For those were the moments that their friendship died.
After the friendship died, Tulip’s behavior continued to quickly decline whether she was scratching the paint off the walls in the bathrooms or teasing the parents of a dead girl, she just kept getting worse.
Tulip’s very last, very worst game of all was when she torched down the hotel “the palace” using petrol and paraffin. Tulip had chosen a night when everyone was all together singing and dancing, so that no-one would notice a dark figure running around outside.
Natalie feels sorry and guilty for Tulip because she has a wonderful hotel to stay in and great parents to take care of her while Tulip lives in a dump with horrible parents who don’t care for her.
I think the message of the book is that no-one is born evil and that there is a reason for their behavior, for Tulip it was her parents and overall home life. I enjoyed the “touch” Tulip always added to her lies for example the lie was: the army is using the farm for training, and the touch she added was: when I get home they are letting me drive a tank. I learnt that there are some bad people in the world who may have had extremely sad lives and that all of us, like Natalie, can choose good or evil.
