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All That Glitters
She’s the only person I know who can make a general greeting sound like a specific death threat.
“Lexi! Over here!” Ananya sits up straighter and sticks a hand in the air. “Thank God you’re here: this class is so boring.”
“Ohwowowow,” Liv squeaks, bopping up and down in her seat, “areyoukiddingLexiyoulookamazingtodayIlove yourskirtI’vetotallygotonejustlikeitexceptit’sredanda differentlengthandshapebutit’sprettymuchidentical.”
When an elephant lies down it only needs to breathe four times a minute. Every time Liv gets excited, I can’t help wondering if she has a similar lung capacity.
Alexa ignores them and swivels to look in my direction.
I’m not kidding: her entire face has just lit up. As if she’s six, it’s Christmas morning and I’m a solid gold bike somebody’s left under the tree.
The frog in my stomach has suddenly gone very still.
“Do you mind if I take this seat?” she says, sashaying towards me in sharp-heeled black boots: the kind you can skewer somebody’s soul with.
“Yes,” I say as clearly as I can. “Immensely.”
But apparently it’s a rhetorical question, because Alexa kicks back and puts her feet on our desk, knocking my compass on to the floor.
I’m going to leave it there. I don’t think drawing my bully’s attention to a sharp metal object with a stabby point is the smartest possible decision at this precise moment.
“I’m so delighted you’re finally back,” she says flatly, picking one of my notepads up and staring at the T-Rex on the front with a wrinkled nose. “Overjoyed, in fact.”
“Are you?” I say tightly.
“Totally.” She’s now fiddling with my ink pot. “School’s so dull without somebody fun to play with.”
Which would be quite sweet if we were five and she didn’t mean the way a tiger plays with a three-legged goat or a cat plays with a mouse just before she rips it apart.
Skeletal muscle consists of 650 striated layers connected to bones, and I’m so cold and rigid now every one of my fibres feels like it’s made out of stainless steel.
This is a disaster.
Actually, no: it’s a catastrophe; a cataclysm; utter ruination. A meteorite could be about to obliterate England, and it would still be second on the Worst Things That Could Possibly Happen Today list.
There’s no way I can make new friends and start again with Alexa snapping at my heels. She’s going to make everybody hate me before I even get a chance.
Again.
“And I just love the look you’re going for today,” she adds in a voice so loud it could blister paint. “Ducks are so hot right now.”
Ducks? I look down in confusion at my white jumper, orange leggings and yellow shoes and then flush bright red. She’s right: I look exactly like a member of the Anatidae family.
That is not the sophisticated first impression I wanted to give at all.
“Hey, you guys,” Alexa continues at the top of her voice, gesticulating with one of my pencils. Everybody in the class is now staring at us in silence. “For those of you who haven’t met Harriet Manners, we’ve known each other a really long time, haven’t we?” The frog in my stomach is now totally frozen. No. No no no no. “A really, really long time. Eleven years, in fact.”
“Alexa—”
“Oh, they’re just going to love our childhood memories, Harriet. They’re adorable. Do you remember when we were five and you peed yourself on the story-time carpet and they had to buy a whole library of new books?”
“OMG!” Ananya laughs from behind me. “I remember that, Lexi! That was hilaire.”
“So gross,” Liv squeaks. “Like, ewwww.”
I feel sick. “It was milk and I squeezed my carton too hard.”
“What about the time you took your skirt off during Year Four Cinderella and ran around the stage in your knickers?”
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God –
“The button fell off and I didn’t notice.”
“And goodness, everybody,” Alexa says, taking a nice big breath while she unsheathes her claws and gets ready to rip my metaphorical intestines out. “Just wait until you hear about the time that Harriet Manners—”
The door smacks open.
She abruptly stops and peers over the top of them. As if she’s protected by the world’s softest, strongest, most absorbable wall.
“Alexa Roberts?”
“Hey, miss! Wow, is your tummy feeling OK? Are they all for you?”
Miss Hammond is slowly changing colour.
Six months ago, Alexa single-handedly attempted to destroy Hamlet before getting detention every day for a month. From the energy crackling between them now, it looks like neither of them has forgotten about it.
“What are you doing in here?” Miss Hammond says sharply, dumping all the rolls on the desk so hard that three bounce straight on to the floor. “This is Form A. You’re in Form C, with Mr White.”
“Am I?” Alexa stands up and flicks her hair. “Oh no. I must have got lost on my way there, somehow. Or maybe I was just drawn here by some invisible and irrepressible force.”
She smiles and I can’t help thinking that if Alexa put this much obsessive compulsive behaviour into her schoolwork she’d have graduated school by now. And university. And possibly obtained some kind of PhD.
“Out,” Miss Hammond snaps, pointing at the corridor. “Now.”
“But miss …”
“Now.”
“I just think …”
“Immediately.”
“Fine.” My nemesis stalks towards the corridor, and then turns round. “But I think it’s really important that you all know about the time that Harriet once—”
“Nobody cares, Alexandra,” Miss Hammond snaps, slapping her hands on her desk. “And if you come near this room again, you’re suspended, effective immediately. Do I make myself clear?”
“But—”
“No buts. Scoot.”
Miss Hammond crosses the classroom quickly, slams the door on Alexa and pulls down the blind so we can’t see her. Then she turns back to a stunned, silent class and smooths down her skirt.
Like a warrior in 100% organic cotton.
“Right,” she says softly, and her voice is all sunshine and kittens in baskets again. “Grab a toilet roll each, guys, and let’s get out on the playing field, build teams and really connect.”
I’ve never brought an apple in for a teacher before, but – as almost the entire class smile at me sympathetically and start grabbing their bags – I think I might just do that.
I’m getting my fresh start after all.
1 It was invented by the Chinese in 600 AD.
2 Britons use 110 rolls each a year, which is the equivalent of six miles of tissue.
3 72% of people hang toilet paper with the first sheet going over the roll.
4 The US military used toilet paper to camouflage their tanks in Saudi Arabia during the Desert Storm war.
5 Novelty paper includes: glow-in-the-dark, money, Word of the Day and Sudoku.
How do I know this?
Let’s just say a few months ago I had a bad cold combined with a long car journey with Toby that I’ve never fully recovered from. I’ve sworn not to blow my nose anywhere near him again.
Miss Hammond appears to be even more excited than Toby about its possibilities.
She giddily ushers all of us outside: past the enormous tug-of-war being conducted by Mrs Baker, beyond a taciturn Mr Bott and small groups constructing tables out of newspaper, far away from Mr White and rings of students passing balloons between their knees and laughing.
(Every couple of minutes there’s a loud BANG that I suspect is not unrelated to Alexa.)
“Right,” Miss Hammond says cheerfully, planting a stick in the ground with a stripy pink sock taped to the end. “We had a very enlightening teacher training session yesterday, didn’t we, Harriet?”
The whole class turns to look at me.
Excellent. Now I look like an undercover teacher trainer.
“And we were reminded of how we are all part of the same beautiful puzzle. Held together by the invisible threads of harmony and happiness.” She pauses. “Please stop hitting Robert with the roll of tissue, Eric.”
“But we’re just bonding, miss,” Eric objects, doing it again. “Our thread of happiness depends on it.”
“Lovely! That’s the spirit!” She beams at us all and then gestures at a blonde girl to take her roll off the top of her head. “So we’re going to play a little game to help us form lifelong connections. After all, there’s no me in team!”
“Yes, there is,” Christopher objects. “It is literally right there.”
“And meat.”
“Mate.” “Meta.” “Atem.”
“That’s not how you spell atom, idiot.”
“See how you’re already working together?” Miss Hammonds claps. “So in a burst of inspiration, I am calling this game The Riddle of the Mummy.”
Liv’s hand goes up.
“Mine is in Vegas right now, miss. She goes there after every summer holiday to recover.”
“Er, excellent, Olivia! And your eventual arrival, Mr King, is always a pleasure, however unpredictable.”
A boy in a yellow T-shirt shrugs and takes a place at the back of the group.
“So,” Miss Hammond continues brightly, “I’m going to ask you all riddles, and in teams of three you’ll try to answer them as quickly as possible. The team that gets it right first gets to take three steps towards The Sock of Survival.”
I can feel an excited, fizzy feeling starting to run down the back of my neck.
I love riddles.
They’re like facts, except backwards and you can solve them and that’s even better. Plus, competition really helps to sharpen my mind and bring out the best in me. Miss Hammond couldn’t have picked a better way for me to make new friends if I’d sent in a handwritten request form.
Which I didn’t, just to clarify.
“To make things a bit more jolly,” she continues, beginning to wind the end of a loo roll round her ankle, “I’m going to turn myself into an Egyptian mummy and chase you, to help motivate you to keep moving forward! If I tap you on the shoulder, you become a mummy too and you’re out of the race. And so on and so forth.”
Oh my God.
This is getting better and better. I love ancient history too (although mummies technically originated in South America but maybe that’s not super relevant to the game right now).
Miss Hammond keeps winding the tissue until it’s binding her legs together like a penguin after knee surgery.
“The team that reaches The Sock of Survival first – without all turning into mummies – wins!”
A flurry of hands immediately go up.
“What do we win, miss?”
“The satisfaction of knowing you did it together!” There’s a pause while all the hands come down again, and Miss Hammond adds slightly reluctantly: “And a ten-pound voucher for the school tuck shop.”
A murmur of approval goes round the class.
I’m now buzzing so hard it’s as if I’m filled with bees or electric toothbrushes, and not just because the prize is sugar.
This is it. This is going to change everything.
From this point onwards, I will no longer be Harriet Manners, pee-er on books, skirt-dropper and irrational lover-of-bananas. I’ll be the Riddle Master. Sweet Winner. Saviour of Socks. Avoider of Mummies and Destroyer of Toilet Rolls.
This is going to be amazing.
Miss Hammond starts grouping people together, and then hops over to me. “Harriet Manners? I’ve put you with India Perez and Olivia Webb.”
I smile shyly as the girl with neon purple hair and Liv walk towards me. India smiles back and my insides do another excited little frog hop: and so my new close and irreplaceable lifelong friendships start.
Honestly, I’m kind of fascinated by her already.
Apparently Queen Elizabeth the First used to pretend that there was a piece of glass between her and the rest of the world to make her feel more royal, and it kind of seems like India has one too. Beneath My Little Pony hair and scowling eyebrows, she has dark eyes and an air of dignity and nobility. She reminds me of a powerful Egyptian princess.
We are definitely going to win now.
“Anya!” Liv calls as we stand behind a line made out of skipping rope. “Ans! A! Ani! Over here! We’ll totally share answers, right?”
India frowns as Ananya pretends to have temporarily lost her hearing facilities.
“You will totally not,” she says steadily. Then she turns to me. “Does this sort of exercise happen a lot at this school? Because it would have been extremely useful to have that in the brochure.”
“Umm, I think it says We are a school dedicated to the creative exploration of the individuality of our students,” I admit. “Page eight. Halfway down, under the photo of people making forts out of boxes.”
India lifts a black eyebrow so it looks like a tick at the end of an essay. “Did you memorise the sixth form brochure?”
“N-no,” I lie. “I just … umm …” Sound more hip, Harriet. “I used that page as kindling to build a really cool fire … for no reason, because I … err, burn stuff I don’t care about, etcetera.”
India puts her eyebrow back down.
“OK,” she says, and I relax again.
I think I just passed my first social test.
“All right, my little intrepid puzzlers!” Miss Hammond calls, now covered head to toe in white, like an overexcited golden Labrador puppy. “Are you ready to journey back 5,000 years to a time of mystery and intrigue?”
There’s a chorus of “yeah,” “suppose so,” “whatever,” “I guess,” are we going to be recycling all this tissue because this is kind of environmentally unfriendly?”
(That last one was me.)
“And …” She shakes a tiny tambourine that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. “Go!”
“How far,” Miss Hammond says, looking up and down the line, “can a person run into the woods?”
There’s a short silence while people whisper.
“We don’t know how big the woods are,” India murmurs as our group crowds its heads together. “There must be information missing. That can’t be the whole question.”
I grin at the other two while my brain clicks away happily. This is so much fun already. It’s so intimate. So bonding. I really feel like part of a team.
“I’ve got this one,” I whisper back conspiratorially, and then stick my hand up. “Halfway, miss. Because if you run any further, you’re running back out of them again.”
“Excellent, Harriet Manners! Take three steps forward!”
I high-five Liv and India like BFFs and we move towards our goal. Miss Hammond closes her eyes, shuffles forward with a small embalmed-dead-person groaning sound and taps Robert on the shoulder.
“Ah, man,” he says as he starts wrapping himself up in toilet tissue. “This is utter b—”
“Language, Robert.” Miss Hammond claps her hands. “I am the beginning of the end, and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. What am I?”
“God!” Christopher’s group yells.
“Santa Claus!”
“Taylor Swift!”
“Nope!” Miss Hammond says to all three groups. “Sorry! Take a step backwards, guys.”
I wink at my group jubilantly as two more people are reluctantly ingratiated into ancient Egypt.
“You are the letter E, miss,” I say loudly.
“I am indeed, Harriet!” We step forward again. “What loses its head in the morning but gets it back at night?”
My hand goes straight up, with the speed of a question-answering ninja. “A pillow!”
And – riddle by riddle, answer by answer – my group starts racing towards the goal. I know what is so fragile that saying the word breaks it (silence). I know what has many keys but can’t open a door (a piano) and what gets wetter and wetter the more it dries (a towel).
Between us, we even know how many months have twenty-eight days in them. India lowers her head to whisper, although we’re so far ahead by now that there’s no real point.
“All of th—”
“Four!” I shout in excitement. “Twenty-eight days hath September, April, June and November!”
“I’m afraid it’s all of them,” Miss Hammond says gently. “All months have at least twenty-eight days. One step back, team.”
Oops.
But luckily it doesn’t matter if we make a mistake now and then, because nobody can catch up. We’re too far ahead for even the mummies to grab us.
Finally, we get within touching distance of the sock.
Studies have shown that during competitive games, cortisol, prolactin, testosterone and adrenocorticotropic hormone levels increase dramatically. I’m now so rabid with excitement I’m basically floating on a fluffy cloud of my own chemical cocktail.
It’s just my team, Christopher and Raya left.
“What kind of room has no doors or windows?”
My mind starts racing, jittering, turning itself inside out and back again. A prison? No, because how would you get in or out? Maybe a cellar, if a trapdoor in the floor didn’t count as either …
Is it a play on words? A groom, a broom, a …
“A cupboard?” Raya suggests, but I suddenly know. Wham. As if my brain was in the dark and a light’s just been switched on: once you see the answer, you can’t unsee it.
I punch the air.
“I’ve got it!” I yell, and beam triumphantly at Liv and India. “It’s a mush-room, miss!”
Then, with three quick hops, I reach the sock and start automatically doing my happy dance: hands punching the air, knees bent, bottom wiggling.
“We win!” I squeak jubilantly. “We win we win we win! Wooooooooo!!!”
All the standard responses to success, adrenaline and unexpected physical activity.
I knew it. Best. Day. Ever.
This is exactly like Rebecca’s birthday party eleven years ago when I won all the games. We played Pass the Parcel and I explained the rules to anyone who held on to the package for too long, and Musical Chairs where I encouraged anyone who was walking too slowly to hurry up, and Musical Statues when I helpfully pointed out people who were moving and … and …
And nobody wanted to play with me ever again.
Cucumbers consist of ninety-five per cent water. Without warning, it suddenly feels as if I may have become one. Every cell in my body is rapidly turning into liquid.
No. No no no no.
I abruptly stop wiggling my bottom and – with infinite slowness – turn around.
And there it is.
Every single one of my peers is standing in silence: arms folded, faces sullen. Glaring at me with narrowed eyes and raised eyebrows. Unimpressed. Outraged. Bored stiff by a game they haven’t participated in.
Precisely the same as when we were five, except they’re considerably bigger now and even angrier because this time they’re covered in broken up bits of toilet roll and they’re not quite sure why.
Oh my God: I’ve done it again.
I was so desperate for my team to win, I didn’t think about anything else. I was trying my hardest, but in doing so I’ve made the entire game about …
Well. Me, I guess.
With a sick lurch, I’m suddenly not so sure I need Alexa to make me unpopular after all.
Oh, who am I even kidding?
Maybe I never actually did.
Swallowing, I turn slowly to Liv and India. Their arms are folded as well. I hold up my hand to awkwardly high-five them. “We won, guys. Yay?”
They both stare at it, suspended in the air. The loneliest hand that has ever existed in the 65 million years since our primate ancestors first evolved them.
“Not really,” India says finally. “You won, Harriet. All by yourself.”
And – as she turns in silence and starts walking back to the sixth-form building, followed by every member of my class – I can’t help but marvel at the irony.
Because, despite my best efforts, all by myself is exactly how I’ve ended up.
In the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,700 miles from Antarctica, lies Bouvet Island. It has an area of forty-nine kilometres squared, is covered in glaciers and ice, and nobody lives there or ever has. According to Wikipedia, it is the remotest island in the world.
Thanks to today’s misadventures, it is still a more popular destination than me.
The rest of the morning can be summarised thus:
1 I apologise to India and Liv and give them my share of the tuck-shop voucher.
2 They tell me it’s fine, honestly, and then avoid me.
3 I overhear a girl in maths say I’m “still an arrogant, weird know-it-all”.
4 I briefly consider telling her that weird originally meant “has the power to control fate” and if that was true I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
5 I realise it’ll prove all three points and think better of it.
News of my unsporting smugness and apparent In Your Face dance spreads around sixth form with the speed of a forest fire. By the time I get out of double physics with Mr Harper, it’s everywhere.
I try to outrace it – attempting to start friendly conversations with strangers as fast as I can – but it’s impossible. The flame hops from student to student via whispers and raised eyebrows until all I’m doing is circling the common room like a desperate squirrel with its tail combusting.
I’m smiling, trying to find things in common, asking questions and remembering details as hard as I can.
But it’s too late.
My seven seconds are up. The first impression has been made, and with every attempt to undo it I just look even more pathetic. It doesn’t matter what I do or what I say any more.
I am the school weirdo.
Again.
By the time I’m ejected from my sixth failed conversation attempt (“Did you know that pirates used to wear gold hoop earrings because they thought it improved their eyesight?”) I’ve officially given up.
