The Tulip Touch

Natalie Barnes, the narrator, grows up in hotels managed by her father, Mr. Barnes. When a large, troubled property called the Palace requires extensive renovation, the family relocates permanently. Natalie's mother, Emma, complains about the disruption but falls silent when she sees the grand building. Natalie spends the summer exploring the Palace's many rooms while workmen restore it and is secretly overjoyed when her parents announce they are staying for good.

On a walk through the fields beyond the Palace woods, Natalie and her father spot a girl standing motionless in the corn, cradling something. Natalie runs toward her, hoping it is a kitten. After a long pause, the girl, from the nearby Pierce farm, gives her name: Tulip Pierce. Days later, Tulip appears at the school playground, and Natalie, still a newcomer, impulsively asks if she wants to be friends.

Natalie pays dearly for the offer. No other child will include Tulip, who is absent more often than not. Mr. Barnes forbids Natalie from visiting Tulip's home, though Tulip is welcome at the Palace. Natalie never seeks other friends, remaining aloof until Tulip appears at the lawn's edge. At the Palace, Tulip invents darkly named games and displays unsettling knowledge, such as explaining that the kindest way to kill fish is to freeze them. She loves the Palace with fierce longing, running her fingertips along its banisters as if claiming the place as her own.

Natalie defies her father once and visits Tulip's house, where she finds stained carpets, battered furniture, and Tulip's mother humming tunelessly without end. Tulip seems hollow in her own home. When Natalie asks about the kitten from the cornfield, Tulip's eyes go hard and she claims she gave it away. Natalie suspects the kitten was killed. She encounters Mr. Pierce, Tulip's father, whose silent, fixed stare frightens her into fleeing. She never returns.

Tulip tells elaborate lies at school, each containing what Mr. Barnes calls "the Tulip touch": a small, precise detail that almost makes an absurd story believable. She is constantly disruptive, but when she and Natalie are cast as the Ugly Sisters in the Christmas play, they become the stars. Tulip loves Christmas at the Palace with desperate intensity. Each year, Emma finds her a borrowed dress, and Tulip joins the carol singing with a radiant face. Natalie, however, overhears Mr. Pierce bellowing threats at Tulip and recognizes that violent phrases from their games may echo his words, not Tulip's own invention.

Tulip's cruelty surfaces in targeted ways. She invents a game that drives Natalie's baby brother, Julius, wild with terror, and she orchestrates a cruel Christmas prank on a vulnerable classmate. The head teacher, Miss Golightly, summons Natalie and warns her she will come to no good as Tulip's "hold-your-coat merchant," someone who stands safely by while another person gets into trouble. Julius tells Natalie he believes Tulip can read his mind. This triggers Natalie's private game, The Tulip Touch: She imagines opening herself completely to Tulip's will, becoming a blank slate. Natalie grows increasingly passive.

Natalie's parents attempt to enroll her at a different secondary school to separate her from Tulip, but small crises distract them past the registration deadline. Natalie suspects Tulip deliberately stayed away that week to lower their guard. Natalie starts at Talbot Harries, the local secondary school, alongside Tulip. Someone has warned the staff, and the two are separated for nearly every lesson. Natalie is miserable. After school, Tulip waits on the steps and offers the choice between going home and skipping the bus to cause trouble. Relieved to no longer be alone, Natalie chooses trouble.

Their mischief escalates from petty cruelties to collecting dead animals and placing them in strangers' rabbit hutches. One day, Tulip takes a live rabbit from a hutch and croons to it in a possessive, threatening way that Natalie recognizes as coming from something darker inside Tulip. They invent "Little Visits," talking their way into strangers' homes to commit small acts of disruption. Tulip's passion for fire intensifies: She sets trash bin fires and pushes for ever more dangerous targets. She reveals that her father punishes her for trivial things and uses her as a pretext to fight with her mother. In art class, Tulip paints a self-portrait of violent brushwork with two huge, forlorn eyes at the center. Natalie sees it clearly and whispers that she is glad she is not Tulip.

When a classmate's sister, Muriel Brackenbury, drowns, Tulip becomes morbidly fixated. Natalie confronts her about the kitten from the cornfield. Tulip admits she drowns kittens herself because her father's method is far crueler: He shoves them in a crock of water and slams the lid, leaving them to scrabble for hours. She once attacked him with a fork to stop him; he threw her outside and forced her to watch through the window. Since then, she has done it quickly herself.

The turning point comes at an empty chicken shed outside town, where Tulip has hidden kerosene and sets the building ablaze. For the first time, Natalie is mesmerized by the fire. Afterward, darker thoughts surface: People hide in sheds, and Julius plays in frail outhouses. In that moment, Natalie's friendship with Tulip dies. She runs into the woods and hides in deep bracken, refusing to answer Tulip's calls. Tulip gives up and goes.

Natalie carefully extracts herself, inventing excuses and avoiding Tulip. Her schoolwork improves, she makes new friends, and she recognizes she is happy for the first time in years. Two police officers visit the Palace and explain that Tulip has visited Mrs. Brackenbury's home three times, each time asking if the dead Muriel would like to come for a walk. When the officers mention speaking to Tulip's parents, Natalie erupts in terror, begging them not to tell Mr. Pierce.

Natalie's parents argue about whether Tulip is evil or damaged. Emma insists Tulip's calculated cruelty is fundamentally different from ordinary misbehavior. Mr. Barnes counters that no one is born evil, that Tulip's abusive upbringing has destroyed her capacity for empathy. Natalie confronts her father directly, accusing him of knowing Tulip's home was unfit yet leaving her there. He admits that he and others raised concerns, but that authorities do not intervene until a situation becomes far worse than merely bad.

Natalie's teacher, Miss Fowler, moves her up a level, and she wins three prizes at year's end. But in the locker room, she wrinkles her nose at Tulip in a deliberate echo of an old game. Tulip's eyes go hard, and she declares it is now her turn to choose. Natalie flees, sensing what Tulip will pick.

On Christmas Eve, while the entire hotel gathers for carols, Tulip splashes accelerants on the Palace's wooden frames and sets it ablaze. She has chained the estate gates and misdirects the first fire engine. The Palace burns. Julius asks Natalie if Tulip did it. Natalie feigns ignorance.

The family prepares to move to a new hotel. Natalie dreams of Tulip and tries to convince herself it was already too late when she met Tulip in the cornfield, but she cannot. She insists that people are not locked doors and that it is possible to get through to them. She lists the adults' complaints about property damage and asks what about Tulip. The novel closes with Natalie declaring she will feel sorry for Tulip all her life. Her final word, repeated: "Guilty."