by Holly Smale
Annabel’s confusion as I left the house.
Oh my God.
There’s a special kind of reef fish called the Enneapterygius pusillus that glows with a bright red light in order to communicate with the fish around it. From the heat in my cheeks right now, it feels like I’m attempting it too.
Every other student on the planet is trying to get out of school. I’m the only one who accidentally breaks in.
I stand up quickly. Think, Harriet.
“I was just, umm …” What? “Bringing a gift for you all. For the … errr … teachers. To wish you luck. With … the training.”
Then I hold out the stupid Big Book of Trivia for the Loo that got me into this mess in the first place. In fairness to the authors, the warning was in the title. I probably should have left it there.
Miss Hammond beams and takes it off me. “That’s so sweet of you, Harriet! How thoughtful! And what a spectacular outfit you’ve chosen for today,” she adds brightly. “You’ve really harnessed your inner rainbow.”
I look down and my cheeks promptly go supernova.
Thanks to getting dressed while reading, I’m apparently wearing a yellow T-shirt, a red jumper featuring a Christmas pudding – in October – a pair of pink pyjama bottoms with blue sheep all over them and the bright purple knee socks Nat bought me “as a joke”, slouched down around my ankles.
On one foot is a green trainer.
On the other is a blue one.
My daughter. Model and style icon. Fashion legend. Sartorial maverick extraordinaire.
Maybe I’m not such a genius after all.
nyway.
While I’m stuffing my mismatched shoes in my satchel and shuffling home in my not-a-whole-lot-better socks, I may as well update you on what’s been happening since I returned from New York, right?
That’s what you want to know.
Exactly what I’ve been doing with myself since I split up with Nick Hidaka – Lion Boy, ex-supermodel and love of my life – on Brooklyn Bridge just over three weeks ago, and flew home without him.
So here it is:
Nothing.
Not literally, obviously, or I’d be dead.
Over the last three weeks I have breathed approximately 466,662 times and processed 4,200 litres of blood with my kidneys. I have produced thirty-seven litres of saliva and 9,450 litres of carbon dioxide.
I’ve had eighteen showers, four baths, brushed my teeth forty-two times, eaten sixty-seven meals and consumed more chocolate bars than I can be bothered to count (and that’s really saying something).
But that’s about it.
Other than basic survival – and packing up the house in Greenway while we waited two weeks for our flight back to England – almost the only thing I’ve done voluntarily is read. With my curtains shut and my bedroom door closed, I’ve devoured words like never before: buried myself in books and submerged myself in stories.
I’ve read during breakfast and lunch and dinner; until the sun’s come up and gone down and come up again.
And not just fact books.
I’ve fought dragons, attended balls and chased a whale. I’ve won wars, lost court cases, travelled India, ridden broomsticks and stranded myself on numerous islands.
I’ve died a dozen times.
Because here’s the thing about a book: when you pick up a story, you put down your own.
For a few precious moments, you become somebody else. Their memories become your memories; your thoughts turn into theirs. Until, page by page, line by line, you disappear completely.
So until today – until my new beginning – that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Because I thought maybe if I could just bury myself deep enough, for long enough, I could shut the world out and myself out with it.
And then I wouldn’t have to think about how the last time I saw Nick is the last time I’ll see him, and the last time I kissed him is the last time I’ll kiss him. About how life keeps going on as it always has.
Or how my heart can beat 100,000 times a day.
Even when it’s broken.
nfortunately, vanishing has its side effects.
And – as I quietly turn on to the path leading back up to my house – I can see two of them: standing on my front door step.
Without a sound, I quickly dive into a nearby bush.
Maybe there are advantages to walking around in your bare socks after all.
“Are you sure?” Nat is saying, shifting from one foot to the other. Her dark hair is curly, and hanging down her back like well-behaved snakes. “You’re certain Harriet’s not here?”
“I’m definite,” Annabel confirms gently. “Unless she’s scaled the outside wall and re-entered through her bedroom window, but given Harriet’s inherent fear of PE it seems unlikely.”
That’s putting it mildly. Frankly, there’s more chance of me growing wings and flying back in.
“It’s actually easier than it looks,” Toby says cheerfully.
Even from a few metres behind I can read the orange letters on the back of his T-shirt: VOTED MOST LIKELY TO TRAVEL BACK IN TIME, CLASS OF 2057.
“If you take the first flowerpot on the left there’s a little toe-hole in the wall just above it, and then you can use the ivy trellis as leverage the rest of the way.” He pauses. “You should probably reassess your exterior plant framework, Mrs Manners. It’s not very security-conscious.”
The corner of Annabel’s mouth twitches. “Oh, I’d imagine we will now.”
“If you want, next time I’m up there I’ll stick a little warning note on the outside of the window telling all other stalkers to go away.”
My stepmother laughs because she obviously assumes that Toby is joking.
I, however, know better.
I am literally never opening my bedroom curtains again.
“Focus, Pilgrim,” Nat says crossly, leaning to the side and poking his arm. “What kind of rubbish stalker are you, anyway? You don’t even know where Harriet is.”
“In fairness, my concentration has been a little distracted with an exorbitant level of homework, and also the TARDIS I’ve been building in my garden.”
Toby holds out bright blue fingers as evidence.
Nat stares at him for a few seconds in disgust. “What is your problem?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Toby says happily. “I’m struggling to make it look as if it has truly travelled through time and space. Any suggestions?”
There’s a silence, then my best friend sighs and turns back to Annabel. “I haven’t seen or heard from Harriet all weekend. She’s not picking up calls, she’s not answering texts and she didn’t remind me seven times about the parrot documentary on telly. I really need to talk to her.”
“She’s just jet-lagged, sweetheart. It takes a little while to settle back into a new time zone, that’s all.”
“And you don’t know where I can find her?”
There’s a tiny pause. “I don’t, I’m sorry.”
“Right.” Nat’s shoulders slump slightly. “Well.” She looks sharply up at my bedroom window, and then kicks the front doorstep a couple of times. We’ve been home six days and my best friend is not an idiot: we’re five hours ahead of New York, not in a different solar system. “I have to go to college. Will you tell her I called again?”
“Of course.” Annabel nods and looks at Toby. “And I’ll tell her you popped by too.”
“You don’t need to,” he says proudly. “She’ll know. I’ve left one of my new calling cards.” He points to the wall and there’s a little round, bright green dot stuck there. “It says TPWH™, which stands for Toby Pilgrim Was Here, Trademarked.”
“I’m impressed,” Annabel smiles. “Very organised and efficient.”
Literally nothing fazes her. She’s like Gandalf but less beardy.
Nat glances at my bedroom window again.
She kicks the doorstep a few more times.
Then, with an audible exhalation, my best f
riend swirls round and stomps back down the garden path in bright silver shoes.
With my stalker trailing after her.
watch Nat leave with a guilty twist of my stomach.
Then I wait as long as I can.
I am invisible. I am undetectable. I am a ninja of imperceptibility, as hidden as a leafy sea dragon, elaborately constructed to blend into my surroundings, and—
“You can come out now, Harriet.”
Oh. So – maybe not.
Slowly, I creep out from inside the bush and brush dried mud and dead leaves off my pyjama bottoms.
“You know,” Annabel says, gently removing a small spider from my eyebrow. Apparently I’m even more camouflaged than I intended to be. “I’m not enjoying all this subterfuge very much, Harriet. It’s much more your father’s style.”
“I know,” I say awkwardly. “Thanks for lying again.”
In Greek and Roman mythology there’s a three-headed dog called Cerberus who guards the entrance of the underworld to prevent the dead from escaping and the living from entering.
For the last few days, that’s exactly what my stepmother has been doing for me.
On cue, my phone beeps three times in quick succession:
When one door of happiness closes, another one opens! :) xx
A break-up is like a broken mirror. It is better to leave it broken than to hurt yourself trying to fix it! :) xx
If you walk away and they don’t follow, keep walking. :) xx
And this is exactly why I’m avoiding Nat.
Ever since I returned from America, it’s been like having my own personal therapist crossed with a woodpecker. What exactly happened? Peck. What did Nick say? Peck. Do I miss him? Peck. Was it definitely the right decision? Peck peck. Can’t we make it work? Has he been in contact? How do I feel?
Peck peck peck peck until the tree falls over.
And it doesn’t matter how many times I tell her I don’t want to talk about it, Nat has decided that we are heartbroken and she’s committed to working through it.
Together.
Incessantly, over and over and over again.
Without a single moment’s peace, and with the help of quite a lot of fridge magnets, motivational T-shirts and quotes off the internet.
Never mind picking the lock: my best friend is trying to smash me open with a sledgehammer.
I take a deep breath and type:
Very wise! Speak soon! :) x
Then I put my phone back in my pocket and glance desperately over Annabel’s shoulder at the house. I’ve got the works of Terry Pratchett waiting on my bedside table. If I take two stairs at a time, I can be balanced on the back of four elephants and a giant turtle within thirty-five seconds.
I love Nat.
She’s my best friend: the person who knows me inside and out, who can finish my sentences when I don’t even know what it is I want to say yet. But – as a magnet might tell me – I can’t start the next chapter of my life if I keep re-reading the old ones.
I just want a new story, that’s all.
“Harriet?” Annabel says as I start racing desperately towards my next escape.
I turn round blankly. “Hmm?”
“You don’t need to shut us all out, sweetheart. Me, your dad. Natalie. You can talk to us about it.”
“Sure,” I say, and then start heading back to my bedroom.
Because for the first time ever, that’s exactly the problem.
Maybe I don’t want to.
o, my plan for the next morning is as follows:
Admittedly, the last point on the list is a bit vague, but I’m leaving it up to the teachers.
That is what they’re paid for, after all.
The way I see it, yesterday was just a dress rehearsal: one that went spectacularly badly. Statistically, a first impression is usually cemented in seven seconds (although obviously I’ve disappointed people far more quickly than that).
This time, I’m not taking any chances.
At 8am, I stand on the doorstep and double-check my carefully selected outfit. A quick study of the psychology of colours has established that white clothes make strangers think you’re honest, yellow clothes make them think you’re friendly and orange implies that you’re a whole lot of spontaneous fun.
So I’m wearing a white jumper, orange leggings and yellow pumps. Hopefully this will silently represent an excellent personality before I’ve said a word.
It may even be powerful enough to make me appealing after I’ve said some too.
Then I roll my eyes at the enormous rustling purple hydrangea to my right. “Come on, Tobes. We’re friends now. Why don’t you just walk to school with me instead of hiding in bushes?”
There’s another rustle and a small squeak. Then Annabel’s cat, Victor, struts out from behind the pot with a piercing expression that says: I’m not going anywhere with you, weirdo.
Flushing slightly as a neighbour gives me the kind of glance you give to people who talk to plants, I decide to go ahead and just start walking to school on my own.
“Tobes,” I say with a small smile when I reach the tree at the bottom of my road, “you’re not being very subtle. I can totally see you …”
A squirrel runs out.
“Toby …” I say as a jogger runs past.
“Tob—” I start again, but it’s just a leaf skittering along the ground.
With growing confusion, I continue walking: past the bench Toby isn’t crouching behind, in front of the lamp-post Toby isn’t pretending to fix with a small screwdriver, past the old man with a big newspaper held up to his face.
“Sorry,” I say after I’ve pulled it down and shouted “Ha! Gotcha!”
“Girls these days,” the man snorts angrily, burying himself in it again. Which is really unfair: I’m pretty sure I’d have done that if I was a boy too.
By the time I approach the road to school and – somewhat reassuringly – spot a group of students in school uniform, I’m starting to feel a little off-centre. I hadn’t realised quite how much of my day is constructed around various degrees of pretending to be irritated with Toby.
Finally, I spot him: crouched on the floor next to the front school gates in a pale brown T-shirt with little flecks all over it. He’s obviously pretending to be a boulder. Or a huge tortoise. Or something else that would never, ever be found outside a British school in a million years.
“Toby,” I say with a huge wave of relief. “There you are. I really don’t think you need to—”
“Hello, Harriet!” he says, redoing a shoe and standing up. His pale sideburns are fluffy and sticking out, and I realise he must have grown another four centimetres over the summer: he’s starting to look like a lightning bolt. “Did you know that Velcro was inspired by the tiny hooks on a burr that stuck to the inventor’s dog? I prefer it to laces, even if evidence of string does date back 28,000 years.”
I beam at him.
That is exactly what I needed to make me feel grounded and secure this morning. A fascinating, shoe-based historical fact, guest-featuring dogs.
“That’s interesting, becau—” I start enthusiastically, but I don’t get any further because Toby sticks two thumbs up and starts powering towards the school gates, slightly-too-short trousers flapping around his ankles.
“See you later, Harriet!” he calls over his shoulder.
“But,” I stutter in amazement, “w-wait, Toby. Don’t we have class together? Shouldn’t we … go in at the same time?”
Or – you know – with him ten paces behind me.
It’s kind of a tradition.
“We’re in different forms now, Harriet!” Toby says cheerfully. “Plus I have a super important project to get on with before class starts. Have a great day!”
And my stalker disappears into school.
Leaving me following ten paces behind him.
t’s amazing what a difference a day can make.
Or – you know.
An open and f
unctioning school you don’t have to break into.
As I push through the glass sixth-form doors, I can feel a terrified, nervous hopping sensation starting at the bottom of my stomach. It takes fifty hours for a snake to fully digest a frog, and for part of that time the frog is still alive. Given the feeling in my stomach, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve accidentally swallowed one too.
Everything has changed.
There is now noise and chaos everywhere. Classrooms and corridors are filled with people: giggling, laughing, shouting, singing. Chair legs are being scraped on the floor, various items are flying through the air – rubbers, crumpled-up notes, packets of crisps – and there’s a faint smell of board-marker and furniture polish that’s halfway between a cleaning cupboard and a sofa shop.
People I don’t recognise are stomping up and down the stairs proprietorially, and students I do know have transformed completely. Braces are off, long hair has been chopped, short hair grown and extended. Acne has erupted or disappeared. A few tentative moustaches have sprouted like shadowy upper lip infections. Everything that was banned last term is scattered defiantly: heels, short skirts, piercings, lipsticks, shaved heads. All worn with pride and triumphant chins.
It’s the same school, yet – somehow – not at all.
Sixth form has been open just four weeks and it already feels like everyone has made this world their own. Now it’s my turn.
With another froggy stomach hop, I reach the door of my new classroom and stand outside on one foot for a few seconds, peeking through the window.
Then I anxiously pull out my phone.
Really wish you were here. Hx
I press SEND and wait a few seconds.
There’s a beep.
Me too. Raid the vending machine for me. ;) Nat x
I smile – I was obviously going to do that anyway – and take a deep breath.
You can do this, Harriet. You are a goddess of insight and possibilities; a warrior of chance and fate. A goldfish of optimism and opportunity.
Oh God. My brain is shutting down already.
Then, with all the courage I can muster, I hold my breath, square my shoulders and lift my chin high.
