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I haven’t seen Toby all morning. I should probably focus the remainder of my efforts on the one person in the year that still wants to talk to me.
But he’s not in the common room, he isn’t in the dining hall and when I take my lunch to his normal spot in the bush behind the gym hall, he’s not there either.
Seriously. For a stalker, Toby is becoming ridiculously difficult to track down.
By the time I eventually find him, tucked into the corner of the art studio, I’ve basically resigned myself to playing noughts and crosses on the floor of the playground. I’ve already got two chalks ready, just in case I can persuade a year seven to play with me.
Although, given how quickly my leper status is whizzing around the school, even that’s looking optimistic.
“Hey, Toby!” I say, pushing through the art room door. He looks up with slightly mad eyes, like a miniature Albert Einstein except without the moustache or Nobel prize.
“Harriet Manners!” he says, pulling his earphones out and quickly flipping over a piece of paper in front of him. “What an unprecedented surprise!”
I am so, so happy to see him.
“Are you having lunch in here today?” I say, bouncing forward and slamming my satchel enthusiastically on the table. “Did you know that in the average lunchtime you eat 150,000 kilometres of DNA? Although I’m afraid this cheese sandwich may have a few less, judging by the state of the lettuce.” I plop it on the desk in front of him.
“Want to share?”
Toby gently pushes the sandwich off his piece of paper and brushes a few crumbs away.
“That’s very kind of you, Harriet. But Mum made me sushi.” He prods a little Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox on the chair next to him. “Except we didn’t have any fish so it’s beef and I’m not keen on wasabi so it’s mustard.” He opens it and peers in. “With bread instead of rice.”
“So,” I say slowly, “it’s a beef sandwich, then?”
“Absolutely,” Toby agrees, holding one up. “Except Mum cut the crusts off and rolled it up into little balls so I’d feel like I was getting an interesting cultural experience.”
I grin and glance briefly around the room.
Thanks to a total lack of artistic interest and even less ability, I’ve spent as little time as possible in this part of the school. There are paints and brushes everywhere, bright canvases leaning against walls and a general atmosphere of creativity.
I don’t like it.
Entirely subjective grades make me uncomfortable.
Toby looks, if possible, even more out of place. The front of his brown T-shirt says COME TO THE NERD SIDE – WE HAVE PI and he’s wearing trousers with an electronic computer keyboard across the lap, though he isn’t actually plugged into a computer. At the moment anyway.
“So what are you doing?” I say, sitting down on the edge of his desk and reaching curiously for the piece of paper.
Toby moves it away. “It’s my project for the Science Fair.”
“Oooh.” The Fair isn’t for another three months, but maybe I need to get started on mine too. “What’s yours on? Can I see?”
“I’m afraid not,” Toby says, shifting the paper into his satchel. “Showing you would jeopardise its top-secret status by definition of it no longer being a secret of any kind.”
“That’s very true.” I frown. “So if it’s science why are you in the art room?”
There’s a tiny pause while Toby stuffs a sushi-sandwich in his mouth, and then says:
“It’s quiet and private and away from … people.”
“Cool.” I look at the sunshine streaming through the windows. “I might do my project on the effect of music on animal behaviour using Hugo and Victor as voluntary subjects, or maybe study the Oort cloud because the edge of it is 4.6 trillion miles from the sun so I can investigate the composition of the—”
“I have a question for you,” a voice interrupts from behind me. “Maybe you can add this to your investigation while you’re at it.”
I spin round in surprise.
Somebody is sitting in the corner near the door, almost totally hidden behind an enormous sculpture of an angel made out of plaster, clay and wire. I had no idea there was anyone else in here: that’s how quiet they are and how big the sculpture is.
And how little my genuine interest in the art room has been, obviously.
“Umm,” I say, blinking a few times. I do love a good question, after all. “Sure. Hit me with it.”
“Do you ever,” the voice says, “and I mean ever, think about anyone other than yourself?”
And I don’t even know who they are yet.
But I asked them to hit me with it, and it feels like they just did.
“S-sorry?” I finally manage.
Then I take a few steps forward until I can see a boy behind the sculpture.
He’s pale and tall, with mousey hair, thick dark eyebrows and a round face, and – for some reason I can’t fathom – he looks slightly magical. It’s only as I get a few metres away that I realise he has two slightly different coloured irises: one pale blue, the other light brown.
Otherwise known as heterochromia iridis and entirely a result of melanin levels in the eyes rather than enchantment or a Harry Potter spell.
Sadly. I checked.
“Seriously,” the boy growls, grabbing some clay and sticking it into the angel’s leg, “I’ve never known anyone so obnoxiously wrapped up in themselves. It’s quite amazing.”
His magical quality takes another enormous step down.
“Sorry? We haven’t even met, have we? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you before in my entire life.”
The boy looks at me steadily for a few seconds.
“I’m in your form. I was in the team next to you this morning. For a full hour.”
I get a little closer, and – now I’m not distracted by the thought that he might be a wizard – I can see that, yup: he’s the new boy in the yellow T-shirt who was late this morning, except now he’s disguised by blue overalls.
In fact, I think when we went back to the form room at the end of team-building to do the register he was sitting at the desk directly in front of me as well.
OK. The defence isn’t looking good right now. Annabel would tell me to start plea-bargaining immediately.
Instead, I automatically go on the counterattack.
“Well,” I say, desperately sticking my nose in the air and crossing my arms, “you didn’t say hello to me either.”
“Yes, I did,” he retorts bluntly. “Twice. You were too busy telling India about the essay you wrote for your English exam. Four months ago.”
I flush. It was all about masculinity and gender in Othello and I thought it might be a good way of making peace with her. I don’t think it worked.
“But—”
“And now this poor guy just wants peace and quiet to work on his project, and you follow him in here, ignore his pretty obvious hints and gab away about yourself again.”
Follow him? Excuse me?
“Actually Toby’s my stalker,” I snap indignantly. “Not the other way round.” I pause slightly while I consider how that sounds. “OK, that’s not exactly what I …”
The guy with the heterochromia snorts.
“Yeah, my mistake,” he says, grabbing a piece of wire and bending it into a C shape. “You’re lovely. I can see why you fit into glamorous New York with all the bananas.”
My mouth flaps in silence a few times – he wasn’t even there when I said that; I knew people were talking about me and my bananas – and then I turn desperately to Toby. Why isn’t he protecting my honour?
Because he hasn’t heard a single word, that’s why.
His head is bent over the piece of paper again, his earphones are back in, and he’s lost in Toby-land: scribbling away frantically, humming the theme tune from Star Wars under his breath.
I rush over and pull out an earphone.
“Hello again, Harriet!” he says, quickly folding his arms across the desk. “Maybe I could encourage you to wear a bell round your neck so people know you’re coming? Our cat’s got one. It’s very handy.”
“Toby.” My cheeks are getting hotter and hotter. “Tell this … this boy …”
“Jasper. For the third time today, my name is Jasper.”
I’m not sure how, but this is getting steadily worse. “Please tell Jasper I’m actually quite nice if you get to know me!”
Toby turns to Jasper with reproach in his eyes.
“Harriet Manners,” he says with total sincerity, “is the sweetest girl in the entire universe. She is a sterling example of what great niceness the human race is capable of. Should we ever need an ambassador for outer space, I will be voting for her to represent us.”
A little grateful knot of embarrassment forms in the base of my throat, and I turn to Jasper triumphantly.
“S—” I start, but before I can get to the “ee” Toby continues:
“Sometimes she is so kind she even lets me sit on her doorstep when it’s raining and she’s too busy to let me in.”
Oh my God. That just made it a billion times worse.
But if I let him in every time I’d never be on my own again.
“Right,” Jasper says flatly, picking up another piece of wire. “Sorry. She sounds utterly charming and not at all like a stuck-up princess.”
I can feel myself starting to get angry.
“Toby,” I say, turning back to him. “You don’t really mind me being here, do you? I’m not in the way, am I?”
Then I look triumphantly at Jasper with my ha face at the ready.
“Actually,” Toby says, “you are a bit in the way, Harriet. It would be useful if you could go away today. I really need to focus on my project. And maybe tomorrow too, actually.”
“But—”
“And Thursday.”
“I—”
“In fact, while we’re discussing it, could you maybe leave me alone for the rest of the week? Next week would also be extremely handy as well.”
It feels like something is starting to tighten inside my chest. Toby doesn’t want to hang out with me either?
Then I turn back to Jasper and the corner of his mouth is turned upwards slightly in a little smirk.
That does it.
A lightning bolt is 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and it feels like one has just shot through me: white-hot anger is scorching and fizzling from the top of my head down to my fingertips and back again.
Swallowing, I stick my chin in the air and start heading towards the door in dignified silence.
Somehow I don’t quite make it.
“You don’t know me,” I say, spinning round. “You don’t know who I am, or how I think, or why I do the things I do. You know nothing about me at all.”
“You’re totally right,” Jasper says as the bell for the end of lunchtime rings. He stands up and pulls off his blue overalls so that the yellow T-shirt is fully visible again. “And you know what?”
“What?”
“That’s just fine by me.”
And without another backwards glance, Jasper walks straight past me and out of the door. Leaving both the angel and me speechless, white and rigid behind him.
It’s a good thing I brought my thesaurus with me, because I have plenty of quality me time to expand my vocabulary over the rest of the day.
For the next four hours, I am completely unescorted.
I am solo as I eat my sandwich in the corner of the common room and drop it down my top, companionless as I mess up a rat dissection in biology because nobody wants to pair with me and lonesome when an experiment in chemistry goes wrong because I can’t hold both the test tubes at the same time.
I even try to make myself feel better by replacing these words with positive synonyms: I independently stare out of the window, I chew my nails unaided and unassisted.
But it doesn’t matter how many different words I use, they all boil down to the same thing.
It’s my first day back at school.
And I am completely alone.
“Anyway …” I say as I wait for the final school bell to ring. I’m now sitting on the little wall next to the playing field, kicking my duck pumps on and off at the heels.
The caretaker picks sheets of tissue off the ground and throws them in a black plastic bag.
“He doesn’t even know me,” I say quietly. “He’s just so rude.”
“Can I borrow some toilet rolls, she says,” the caretaker mutters, picking up another few bits. “Just a few, she says. And next thing I know every roll in the school is all over the grass and nobody’s got anything to wipe their bottoms with for the rest of the week.”
“Exactly!” I say triumphantly. “Or almost exactly, anyway. That’s nearly the same thing.”
I kick my feet against the wall despondently.
At least I’ve found somebody who will talk to me. I hadn’t expected my first kindred spirit in sixth form to be a fifty-seven-year-old man in dungarees and a tool belt, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Plus he spends a lot of his time under tables and in cupboards, so we actually have a surprising amount in common.
Steve bends down again. “I’m supposed to be practising my spinning tonight, not cleaning up after hours. That hippy can bring in her own supplies next time.”
I shake my head in empathy. Then I hop off the wall so I can pick up a few bits of tissue and pop them in the bag. I like to spin round too: maybe he has a special office twirly chair like Dad?
We work industriously together in companionable silence for a few minutes, and then I clear my throat and say: “I’ve got a miniature game of Scrabble in my satchel – would you like to play it with me tomorrow?”
There’s a thoughtful pause while Steve considers this.
“Hang on … Chicken wire? Did you say the statue is made out of chicken wire? I knew I was missing a roll. That little blighter.”
“Isn’t he just the most horrible, unpleasant—”
“Quack quack,” a familiar voice says and I immediately stop moving with my hand still clutching a bit of tissue: bent double, with my bottom firmly poking in the air.
I can’t help feeling as if I’m not as well protected as I could be.
Slowly, I straighten up and turn to look at Alexa.
She’s standing a few metres away with her hands on her hips. Ananya and Liv are at either side, and India is standing just behind them.
Huh. That was fast.
I guess she’s picked her team already.
I look at the wad of crumpled tissue in my hand, then at the black bin bag. Then at the middle-aged man I’m chatting to. On my own. Voluntarily, when I could just go home.
There’s a piece of loo roll stuck to my knee, and another attached to the toe of my shoe. Tuna is still coating my front, and I smell of a day’s worth of embarrassed dry sweat.
In the meantime, Alexa is noticing exactly the same things.
“You’re hanging out with the staff now? Like, people who are actually paid to be here all day?”
“Actually, Steve’s …” only part-time, I’m about to say, and then change my mind.
“So where are your little sidekicks now, Harriet? Where’s Team Geek?” Alexa elaborately looks around her. “I can’t see them. Are they hiding?” She picks up a bit of loo roll and pretends to look under it. “Helloooo? Geeks? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Nat’s gone to fashion college,” I say as firmly as I can, even though Alexa already knows this. “And Toby’s really, really busy with something super important.”
“Oh yes,” she says, narrowing her eyes and putting the paper back down again. “That’s right. You’re totally on your own now, aren’t you?”
Alexa has always known how to find the rusty nail and smack it straight on the head.
My eyes start prickling.
“No,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster. “I’m not alone. I have …” Steve, I’m about to say, and then change my mind for the second time.
“This is pathetic, even for you.” Alexa sounds genuinely cross. “Where’s the fun, Harriet Manners? Where’s the challenge? You’ve ruined everything.” She clicks her fingers and turns away. “She’s not worth it, guys. We’ve got better things to do.”
As if I’m one of the fabric mice we give Victor and he’s chewed all the catnip out of it, rendering it useless and of no interest any more.
The bell rings and Alexa starts marching towards the front gates with her Underlings behind her. India looks at me with disdain for a few seconds, then turns and follows them.
My eyes are smarting, my vision is starting to wobble and my throat feels like there’s a sofa cushion stuck in it.
Then my phone beeps.
How was your first day?? Tell me tell me! Nat xxx
How am I supposed to answer that with any self-respect?
A-maz-ing!! SO MUCH FUN!! Couldn’t have gone better!!! Can’t wait for two more whole years of this!!!! Hxx
With a lie, that’s how.
I put my phone away, hiding my face behind my hair so Steve can’t see my chin starting to crumple.
“It’s all right, love,” he says, giving me an awkward pat on the back as I head towards the school gates. “Those nasty little minxes will get what’s coming to them.”
“Sure they will,” I say over my shoulder, even though I know they obviously won’t.
Because Alexa’s right.
There’s a big difference between not-popular and unpopular, and I hadn’t even noticed that until I was on the other side. I may have spent years struggling to make friends at school, but this is the first time since I was five that I’ve had none.
And of the two options, I can’t decide which is worse:
a) being brought down a peg or two every school day of your life for eleven years
or
b) finally being so far at the bottom that there’s nowhere left to go.
Which is obviously untrue.
Most clouds don’t: just the rain clouds with the sun directly behind them. Given the size of the sky, that makes it statistically uncommon.
However, I’d like to think that I’m the kind of person who at least looks for the sunshine. A positive, optimistic girl, who hopes for the best even when the signs aren’t looking good.
And – let’s be honest – they’re really not right now.
At all.
The first schools were established in 425 AD. I’d be quite surprised if anyone has had a less successful first day in the history of formal education.
On the upside, at least I’ll be able to focus on my schoolwork properly now. Without any distractions or discussions or interesting debates. All day, every day, for the next two years.
Most of the evenings too.
And possibly quite a few weekends, if Nat gets really busy with college.
Oh my God.
Of all the planets in our solar system, we would weigh the most on Jupiter. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve somehow accidentally ended up there instead.
Bits of the day are beginning to rattle around inside my head like coloured balls inside a lottery machine, and every time they collide with each other, another little piece of me gets heavier.
I like bananas! My lungs. I’ve got this one! My tongue. It’s a mushroom! My kidneys and liver. Do you ever think about anyone but yourself? Maybe you could leave me alone? Eyeballs, spleen, pancreas, veins, muscles.
She’s not worth it: every single one of my bones.
Until, organ by organ, I weigh so much I’m surprised I don’t have to drag myself down the road by my fingernails.
Finally, I manage to reach the bench on the corner of the road where Nat and I have met every morning for the last ten years, even when our parents had to come with us.
I stand and look at how empty it is.
Then I turn around again and start walking towards the only place in the world that could possibly make me feel lighter again.
The local launderette.
I haven’t been back here since Annabel and Dad broke up and then had their big romantic laundry reunion nearly a year ago. Initially, I thought it was because it had become their place, not mine any more. Then I thought it was because I’d just worked out how to clean my clothes for free at home, like a normal human being.
But now I’m wondering if it’s simply because I haven’t needed it the way I need it now.
When I don’t know where else to go.
I still love this place.
I love the bright lights, the soapy smells, the soft purring of the machines. I love the heat and the shininess of the glass in the tumble driers. But most of all I love the way that nothing could ever feel alone in a place where so many things are jumbled together.
I rub my eyes and pull a chair over to my favourite machine. The glass is still warm, and there are baskets filled with piles of abandoned clothes everywhere. Somebody’s even left a shoe behind: it’s peeking out from behind a particularly large heap of jumpers and underwear.
I pull a blue sock out of my bag and a memory suddenly flashes: snow, warm cheeks, a cold hand squeezing mine.
So I swallow and put it in the drier as quickly as I can.
Then I start fumbling through my satchel for the fifty pence I need to put it on a quick spin. Followed by another fifty pence.
Then another pound in shrapnel.
And a two pound-coin.
After the day I’ve had I may be here some time. I am about to own the driest sock in existence.
I’m just chipping a bit of melted chocolate off a pound so that the machine recognises it as something other than a snack when something small and shiny flies through the air and lands in my lap.
I blink at the newly arrived coin, then at the empty room.
Maybe there’s some kind of strange gravitational pull levitating the money out of the machines and throwing it at my head. I suppose I could do my science project on that instead.
Reaching into my bag, I pull out another ten pence and there it is again: money, soaring through the air.
Except this time it’s a pound, which is even better.
I look around the empty room – still nothing – and am just quickly calculating how long I’ll have to stay here before I am rich enough to buy a castle when somebody laughs.
“You actually think it’s magic flying money, don’t you?”