Plot
In 1952 Christchurch, Juliet Hulme, an affluent 13-year-old English girl, transfers to a new school and befriends Pauline Parker, a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family. Bonding over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalisations, they develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty.
Unlike the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family, Pauline's relationship with her mother, Honora, is hostile, and the two fight constantly. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted.
Together, Juliet and Pauline paint, write stories, make figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and made into films in Hollywood. Over time, it begins to be as real to them as the real world. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World", a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies.
During a day trip to Port Levy, Juliet's parents announce their plan to go on a trip together, leaving Juliet by herself. Hysterical at the prospect of being left alone, Juliet experiences the Fourth World for the first time, perceiving it as a land where all is beautiful and she is safe. She asks Pauline to come with her, and this world also becomes visible to Pauline. This shared spiritual vision confirms their Fourth World belief and begins to affect their perception of events in the everyday world.
When Juliet is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a clinic, she and Pauline begin writing to each other, not only as themselves but in the roles of the royal couple of Borovnia. During this time, Pauline has a sexual relationship with a lodger, making Juliet jealous. Their fantasy life becomes a useful escape from the real world, and the two engage in increasingly violent, even murderous, fantasies about people who oppress them. After Juliet is released from the clinic, their relationship intensifies. Wary of her attachment to Pauline, Juliet's father speaks to Pauline's parents, who take her to a doctor. The doctor suspects that Pauline is homosexual and uses it to explain her dramatic weight loss and increasing anger at her mother.
Juliet's parents announce their intention to divorce and leave Christchurch, with Juliet to stay with a relative in South Africa. Increasingly distraught at the thought of separation, the two girls plan to run away together. When that plan becomes impossible, the two share a bathtub and talk about murdering Pauline's mother, seeing her as the primary obstacle to their being together.
The two girls spend the last three weeks together at Juliet's house. At the end of that time, Pauline returns home, and the two finalise plans for the murder. Honora plans a trip for the three of them to Victoria Park. After having tea, the three walk on a path down a steep hillside. When Honora bends over to pick up a pink charm the girls have deliberately dropped, Juliet and Pauline bludgeon her to death with a broken piece of brick hidden in an old stocking.
A textual epilogue reveals that Pauline and Juliet were arrested shortly after the murder, sentenced to five years in prison, as they were too young to face the death penalty, and released separately in 1959 on the condition that they never see each other again.
