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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 (#ulink_128c01bd-1369-5ccf-89a5-2a0c7f497520)
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 (#ulink_93cafea0-c8ae-5a13-998a-8a868dc88c21)
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?”
