Solitaire

“But …” It’s impossible. “But you were so … normal.”

He shrugs and smiles and the raindrops on his face almost make him seem as if he’s crying. “There’s a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is their default setting. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner.”

What, now he’s being profound?

“Why did you need to tell me this? Why did you need to track me down? Why was it that important?”

He shrugs again. “It wasn’t, I guess. But I wanted you to know. And when I want to do something I usually do it.”

I stare at him. Nick and Charlie were right. He’s absolutely insane.

He holds up a hand and sends me a slight wave.

“See you soon, Tori Spring.”

And then he wanders away. I’m left standing under the broken lamp post in my black jumper and the rain, wondering whether I’m feeling anything yet and realising that it’s all very funny because it’s all very true.

SIX

I HEAD INSIDE, go into the dining room and say hello to my family. They’re still at dinner, as usual. Well, except Oliver. Since dinner’s kind of a two to three-hour job in our house, Oliver’s always allowed to leave the table once he’s done and I can hear him playing Mario Kart in the living room. I decide to join him. If I could swap bodies with someone for a day, I would choose Oliver.

“Toriiii!” As soon as I enter, he rolls over on the futon and stretches his arm towards me like a zombie rising out of the grave. He must have got yoghurt all down his school jumper today. And he has paint on his face. “I can’t win on Rainbow Road! Help me!”

I sigh, sit down on the futon next to him and pick up the spare Wii remote. “This track is impossible, bro.”

“No!” he whines. “Nothing’s impossible. I think the game’s cheating.”

“The game can’t cheat.”

“It is. It’s cheating on purpose.”

“It’s not cheating you, Ollie.”

“Charlie can win. It just doesn’t like me.”

I produce a large and exaggerated gasp, springing up from the futon. “Are you suggesting that Charlie is better at Mario Kart than moi?” I start to shake my head. “Nope. Nuh-uh. I’m the Mario Kart Empress.”

Oliver laughs, his fluffy hair waving around atop his head. I fall back on to the futon, lift him up and sit him on my lap.

“All right,” I say. “Rainbow Road is going down.”

I don’t keep track of how long we’re playing for, but it must be quite a while because, when Mum comes in, she’s pretty irritated. And that’s extreme, for her. She’s a very emotionless person.

“Tori,” says Mum. “Oliver should have been in bed an hour ago.”

Oliver doesn’t seem to hear her. I glance up from the race.

“That’s not really my job,” I say.

Mum looks at me, expressionless.

“Oliver, it’s bedtime,” she says, still looking at me.

Oliver quits the game and trots off, high-fiving me on the way. Even when he’s gone, Mum doesn’t stop looking at me.

“Do you have something to say?” I ask.

Apparently, she doesn’t. She turns round and leaves. I get in a quick round of Luigi Circuit before heading to my own room. I don’t think my mum likes me very much. That doesn’t really matter, because I don’t really like her either.

I put the radio on and blog until the early hours. The radio is playing all this dubstep crap, but I’ve got it on quietly so I don’t care too much. I can’t be bothered to leave my bed except to make at least five trips downstairs for more diet lemonade. I check the Solitaire blog, but there’s nothing new. So I spend ages scrolling down all my favourite blogs, reblogging screencaps of Donnie Darko and Submarine and The Simpsons taken out of context. I write a couple of whiney posts about I don’t even know what and I almost change my display picture, but can’t find anything where I look normal, so I fiddle around with my blog theme’s HTML for a bit to see if I can remove the gaps between each post. I stalk Michael’s Facebook, but he seems to use it even less than I do. I watch a bit of QI, but I don’t really find it interesting or funny any more, so instead I watch Little Miss Sunshine, which I didn’t finish yesterday. I never seem to be able to finish watching a film on the same day I start it because I can’t bear the thought of the film ending.

After a while, I put my laptop by my side and lie down. I think about all the other people who were at the restaurant who are probably now pissed and getting off with each other on Lauren’s parents’ sofas. At some point I fall asleep, but I can hear all these creaky noises coming from outside and something in my brain decides that there is definitely some kind of giant and/or demon stomping around in the road so I get up and close the window just to make sure that whatever it is cannot get inside.

When I get back into bed, every single thing that you could possibly think about in one day decides to come to me all at once and suddenly there’s a small lightning storm inside my head. I think about Solitaire, and then I think about Michael Holden and why he said we should be friends and what he was really like when he was at Truham. Then I remember Lucas and how embarrassed he was, and I wonder why he made all that effort trying to find me. Then I remember his Hawaiian shirt which still enormously irritates me because I hate to think that he’s become some indie band wannabe. So I open my eyes and wander around the Internet to take my mind off it all, and, once I feel relatively okay again, I fall asleep with the glare of my blog home page warming my face and the hum of my laptop soothing my mind like crickets at a campsite.

SEVEN

WE DIDN’T EXPECT anything more from Solitaire. We thought the one prank would be the end of it.

We were quite a way off.

On Wednesday, all the clocks magically vanished and were replaced by pieces of paper reading ‘Tempus Fugit’. It was funny at first, but after a few hours when you’re midway through a lesson and you can’t check your phone and you have no way of finding out what the time is – well, it pretty much makes you want to scratch out your eyeballs.

On the same day, there was hysteria in school assembly when the tannoy started playing Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack’, the most well-received song of the Year 8 Higgs-Truham disco, as Kent walked up the hall stage stairs and the word ‘SWAG’ appeared on the projector screen.

On Thursday, we turned up to find that two cats had been let loose within the school. Apparently, the caretakers managed to get one of them out, but the other cat – an underfed, ginger thing with massive eyes – evaded capture all day, strolling in and out of lessons and through corridors. I quite like cats, and I saw it for the first time at lunch in the cafeteria. I almost felt like I’d made a new friend, the way it hopped on to a chair and sat with Our Lot as if it wanted to join in our gossip and offer its views about celebrity Twitter rows and the current political climate. I noted to myself that I should probably start collecting cats, seeing as they are very likely to be my sole companions in ten years’ time.

“My spirit animal would so be a cat,” said Becky.

Lauren nodded. “Cats are Britain’s national animal.”

“My boyfriend has a cat called Steve,” said Evelyn. “Isn’t that an excellent name for a cat? Steve.”

Becky rolled her eyes. “Evelyn. Dude. When are you going to tell us who your boyfriend is?”

But Evelyn just smiled and pretended to be embarrassed.

I peered into the dark eyes of the cat. It met my gaze thoughtfully. “Do you remember when some lady got caught on camera dumping a cat into a brown bin and it made national news?”

Every single prank so far has been photographed and displayed on the Solitaire blog.

Anyway.

Today is Friday. People are beginning to find it less funny as Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ has been stuck on repeat all day over the tannoy. I used to have a small obsession with this song, and I am coming extremely close to slitting my wrists with my scissors and it’s only 10.45am. I’m still not quite sure how Solitaire is managing to do all this as Zelda and her prefects have been patrolling the school ever since Wednesday’s clocks fiasco.

I’m sitting at a table playing chess on my phone during a free period, iPod blasting some Radiohead song into my ears to block out the vomit-inducing music. The common room has only a scattering of people, mostly Year 13s revising for January retakes. Miss Strasser is overseeing the room because, during lesson times, the common room is reserved for people revising and silence is mandatory. This is why I like this room. Except today. Strasser’s hung a spare school jumper over the tannoy speaker, but it’s not doing much.

In the corner of the common room, Becky and Ben are sitting together. They are not doing any work, and they are both smiling. Becky keeps tucking her hair behind her ears. Ben takes Becky’s hand and starts to draw on it. I look away. So long, Jack.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, so suddenly that I have a miniature spasm. I take my headphones out of my ears and swivel round.

Lucas stands before me. Every time we passed in the corridors this week, he gave me these weird little waves. Or smiles. I don’t know, the sort of smiles where you scrunch up your face and in any other context people would wonder whether there was something wrong with you. Anyway, right now, he has his bag slung over one shoulder and in his other arm he has a pile of at least seven books.

“Hi,” he says, just above a whisper.

“Hi,” I say. There’s a short pause, before I follow up with: “Er, do you want to sit here?”

Embarrassment pours over his face, but he quickly replies, “Yeah, thanks.” He pulls out the chair next to me, dumps his bag and books on the desk and sits down.

I’ve still got my phone in my hand and I’m just kind of staring at him.

He sticks a hand into his bag and withdraws a Sprite can. He places it in front of me, like a cat would place a half-chewed mouse in front of its owner.

“I was at the shop at break,” he says, without looking me in the eye. “Is lemonade still your favourite?”

“Er …” I look down at the Sprite can, not quite sure what to make of it. I do not point out that Sprite is not real lemonade or diet. “Erm, yeah, it is. Thanks, that’s, er, really nice of you.”

Lucas nods and turns away. I open the Sprite, take a sip, replace my headphones and return to my game. After only three more moves, I have to remove my headphones again.

“You’re playing chess?” he asks. I hate questions that need not be asked.

“Erm, yes.”

“Do you remember chess club?”

Lucas and I were members of our primary-school chess club. We played each other every time and not once could I beat him. I always threw a tantrum whenever I lost. God, I used to be a twat.

“No,” I say. I lie a lot for no reason. “No, I don’t.”

He pauses and for a moment I think he sees through me, but he’s too embarrassed to push it.

“You have a lot of books,” I say. As if he wasn’t aware of this.

He nods, smiling awkwardly. “I like to read. And I’ve just been in the library.”

I recognise all the titles, but of course I haven’t read any of them. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, John Fowles’ The Collector and Jane Austen’s Emma.

“So what are you reading now?” I ask. The books at least provide a topic of conversation.

“The Great Gatsby,” he says. “F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

“What’s that about?”

“It’s about …” He pauses to think. “It’s about someone who’s in love with a dream.”

I nod as if I understand. I don’t. I don’t know a single thing about literature, despite studying it for A level.

I pick up Emma. “Does this mean you actually like Jane Austen?” We’re still studying Pride and Prejudice in class. It’s soul-destroying and not in a good way. Do not read it.

He tilts his head as if it’s a deeply serious question. “You sound surprised.”

“I am. Pride and Prejudice is dreadful. I can barely get past the first chapter.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s the literary equivalent of a poorly cast romcom.”

Someone gets up and tries to walk past us, so we both have to tuck in our chairs a little.

Lucas is looking at me very carefully. I don’t like it.

“You’re so different,” he says, shaking his head and squinting at me.

“I may have grown a few centimetres since I was eleven.”

“No, it’s—” He stops himself.

I put down my phone. “What? It’s what?”

“You’re more serious.”

I don’t ever remember not being serious. As far as I’m concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain.

I’m not really sure how to reply. “I’m, well, I am possibly the least funny person since Margaret Thatcher.”

“No, but you were always dreaming up all these imaginary games. Like our Pokémon battles. Or the secret base you made out of the cornered-off section of the playground.”

“Would you like to have a Pokémon battle?” I fold my arms. “Or am I too unimaginative for that?”

“No.” He’s digging himself into a hole and it’s actually quite funny to watch. “I … oh, I don’t know.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Quit while you’re ahead. I’m boring now. I’m a lost cause.”

I instantly wish I’d just shut up. I always do this thing where I accidentally say self-deprecating stuff that makes other people feel really awkward, especially when it’s true. I start to wish I’d never offered to let him sit with me. He quickly returns to the work he’d got out of his bag.

‘Material Girl’ is still playing over and over. Apparently, the caretakers are trying to fix it, but at the moment the only solution appears to be cutting the electrics of the entire school, which, according to Kent, would classify as “giving in”. He’s got that World War II Churchill attitude, old Mr Kent. I take a quick glance out of the windows behind the computers. I know I should be doing some homework too, but I’d much rather play chess and admire the windy greyness outside. That’s my major problem with school. I really don’t do anything unless I actually want to. And most of the time I don’t want to do anything at all.

“You’ve had quite a good first week,” I say, my eyes still focused on the sky.

“Best week of my entire life,” he says. Seems like an exaggeration to me, but each to their own.

Lucas is such an innocent guy. Awkward and innocent. In fact, he’s so awkward that it’s almost as if he’s putting it on. I know he’s probably not, but that’s still the way it comes across. I mean, awkward is very in fashion at the moment. It’s frustrating. I have experienced my fair share of awkward, and awkward is not cute, awkward does not make you more attractive and awkward certainly should not be fashionable. It just makes you look like an idiot.

“Why did we stop being friends?” he asks, not looking at me.

I pause. “People grow up and move on. That’s life.”

I regret saying this, however true it might be. I see a kind of sadness fizzle into his eyes, but it quickly disappears.

“Well,” he says and turns to me, “we’re not grown up yet.”

He takes out his phone and starts to read something on it. I watch as his face melts into something confusing. The pips that signal the end of break somehow manage to sound over the music and he puts the phone away and starts to gather his stuff.

“Got a lesson?” I ask and then realise that this is one of those pointless questions which I hate.

“History. I’ll see you later.”

He walks several paces before turning as if he has something else to say. But he just stands there. I give him a strange sort of smile, which he returns and then walks away. I watch as he meets a boy with a large quiff at the door and they start up a conversation as they exit the common room.

Finally at peace, I return to my music. My iPod has shuffled on to Aimee Mann – just one of my many depressing nineties artists that nobody has heard of. I get to wondering where Michael Holden might be. I haven’t seen him since Tuesday. I don’t have his phone number or anything. Even if I did, it’s not like I would text him. I don’t text anyone.

I don’t really do much for the next hour. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to be in a lesson, but I really can’t find the will to move. I briefly wonder again who Solitaire might be, but I conclude for the billionth time that I just don’t care. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to take Charlie to counselling tonight because Nick is busy, and then I sit very still with my head on one arm and doze off.

I wake up just before the pips go again. I swear to God I’m a freak. I mean it. One day I’m going to forget how to wake up.

EIGHT

I’M SPRAWLED ON the computer desks in the common room at 8.21am on Monday with Becky raving on about how cute Ben Hope was at Lauren’s (that was six days ago, for God’s sake) when someone bellows with extreme resonance from the door: “HAS ANYONE SEEN TORI SPRING!?”

I wake from the dead. “Oh Christ.”

Becky roars my location across the air and before I have time to hide under the desk, Zelda Okoro is standing in front of me. I flatten my hair, hoping it will shield me from her dictatorial intervention. Zelda wears full make-up to school every day, including lipstick and eyeshadow, and I think she might be certifiably insane.

“Tori. I’m nominating you for Operation Inconspicuous.”

It takes several seconds for this information to register.

“No, you are not,” I say. “No. No.”

“Yes. You haven’t got a say. The Deputy Heads voted on who they wanted in Year 12.”

“What?” I slump back on to the desk. “What for?”

Zelda puts her hands on her hips and tilts her head. “We’re facing a crisis, Tori.” She speaks way too fast and in extremely short sentences. I don’t like it. “Higgs is facing a crisis. A team of eight prefects just isn’t going to cover it. We’re upping the stake-out ops team to fifteen. Operation Inconspicuous is a go. Tomorrow. 0700.”

“I’m sorry – what did you just say?”

“We’ve come to the conclusion that most of the sabotage must be happening during the early hours. So we’re staking out tomorrow morning. 0700. You’d better be there.”

“I hate you,” I say.

“Don’t blame me,” she says. “Blame Solitaire.” She clip-clops off.

Becky, Evelyn, Lauren and Rita are all around me. Lucas too. I think he’s one of Our Lot now.

“Well, you’re obviously in the teachers’ good books,” says Becky. “Next thing you know, they’ll be making you an actual prefect.”

I shoot her a look of severe distress.

“Yeah, but if you were a prefect, you could skip the lunch queue,” says Lauren. “Fast food, man. And you could give Year 7s detentions whenever they’re being too cheerful.”

“What did you even do to make the teachers like you?” asks Becky. “You don’t exactly do much.”

I shrug at her. She’s right. I don’t do much at all.

Later in the day, I pass Michael in the corridor. I say ‘pass’, but what actually happens is he shouts “TORI” so loudly that I manage to drop my English folder on the floor. He lets out this deafening laugh, his eyes scrunching up behind his glasses, and he actually stops and stands still in the middle of the corridor, causing three Year 8s to bump into him. I look at him, pick up my folder and walk right past.

I’m in English now. Reading Pride and Prejudice. Now that I’ve reached Chapter 6, I have established that I hate this book with a profound passion. It’s boring and clichéd, and I constantly feel the urge to hold it over a lit match. The women only care about the men and the men don’t seem to care about anything at all. Except Darcy maybe. He’s not so bad. Lucas is the only person I can see who is reading the book properly, with his calm and quiet expression, but every so often he checks his phone. I scroll through a few blogs on my own phone under the desk, but there really isn’t anything interesting on there.

Becky is in the seat next to me and she’s talking to Ben Hope. Unfortunately, I can’t avoid them without moving to a different seat or leaving the class or dying. They are playing Dots and Boxes in Ben’s school planner. Becky keeps losing.

“You’re cheating!” she exclaims and attempts to grab Ben’s pen. Ben laughs a very attractive laugh. They have a small wrestling match over the pen. I try not to throw up or dive under the table from sheer cringe.

In the common room at lunch, Becky tells Evelyn all about Ben. At some point, I interrupt their conversation.

“What happened to Jack?” I ask her.

“Jack who?” she says. I blink at her, and she turns back to Evelyn.

NINE

DAD GETS ME to school at 6.55am the next day. I am in a trance. In the car, he says: “Maybe if you catch them in the act, you’ll get a community award.”

I don’t know what a community award is, but I feel that I’m probably the least likely person in the world to get one.

Zelda, her prefects, the nominated helpers and even old Kent are in the hall and I’m the only one there who came in school uniform. It’s basically night-time outside. The school heating hasn’t started up yet. I praise myself for putting on two pairs of tights this morning.

Zelda, in leggings and running shoes and an oversized Superdry hoodie, takes charge.

“Okay, Team Ops. Today’s the day we’re catching them, yeah? Everyone’s got a separate area of the school. Patrol that area and call me if you find anything. Nothing’s been done to the school since Friday so there’s a chance they won’t turn up today. But we’re going to do this until we feel that the school is safe, whether we end up catching anyone or not. Meet back in the hall at eight.”

Why did I even come here?

The prefects begin to chat among themselves, and Zelda speaks to each person individually before sending them off into the unlit, unheated depths of the school.

When she gets to me, she presents me with a piece of paper and says, “Tori, you’re patrolling the IT suites. Here’s my number.”

I nod at her and go to walk off.

“Er, Tori?”

“Yeah?”

“You look a bit …” She doesn’t finish her sentence.

It’s 7am. She can piss off.

I walk away, throwing the piece of paper in a bin as I pass it. I come to a halt upon finding Kent standing ominously by the hall entrance.

“Why me?” I ask him, but he just raises his eyebrows and smiles at me, so I roll my eyes and walk away.

Wandering around the school like this is peculiar. Everything’s so still. Serene. No air circulation. I’m walking through a freeze-frame.

The IT suite is in C Block, on the first floor. There are six computer rooms: C11, C12, C13, C14, C15 and C16. The usual whir of the suite is absent. The computers are all dead. I open up C11, switch on the lights and repeat this for C12, C13 and C14 before giving up and taking a seat on a swivel chair inside C14. What does Kent even think he’s doing involving me in this? As if I’m going to do any kind of ‘patrolling’. I kick the floor and spin. The world hurricanes around me.

I don’t know how long I do this, but, when I stop to read the time, the clock waves in front of my eyes. When it calms down, it reads 7.16am. I wonder for at least the sixteenth time what I am doing here.