Freshers

by Tom Ellen

  ‘No, I think she just fancied him. Or it was like some kind of expression of . . . something. I don’t actually know. But she definitely bit him and from that moment they both knew that for better or worse they were tied together. Like they were meant to meet. And they both really believed in that kind of fatalistic moment.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But it’s just weird because they both wrote about it in their diaries, but one of them got this insignificant detail wrong. The blue or red ribbon thing. So, Yorgos was saying it means a lot because they are poets, and colour and imagery is significant, I suppose.’

  Luke nodded slowly. ‘So, it’s like, either the ribbon was blue, and he really did see her clearly, like the person she really was . . . Or it was red, and he never really saw her. He just projected on to her what he wanted to see?’

  ‘Yeah, exactly,’ I said. ‘I agree with Mary, to be honest. It was her ribbon, she must have known. So, it was like he misread her from the very start.’

  I could feel Luke looking straight at me. ‘OK, right,’ he said. ‘I get it.’

  LUKE

  I didn’t get it.

  Was that what had happened with me and Abbey? Had I misread her from the start? Or had she misread me? Maybe she’d thought I was calm, steady blue, when really I was fiery, ruin-your-life red.

  Thinking about Abbey made me suddenly feel guilty about liking Phoebe and even finding Mary hot-yet-terrifying. And then I felt guilty for thinking about Abbey and Mary when I should have been focusing on what Phoebe was saying. And then I got so frustrated with it all that I booted a conker off the walkway, scattering a bunch of squirrels.

  ‘Poetry’s too complicated,’ I muttered.

  Phoebe laughed. ‘What do you like, then? Like, who’s your favourite writer?’

  ‘I dunno. I like John Fante and Ken Kesey. I like Hemingway a lot.’

  ‘Luke!’ She looked at me in what seemed like mock-horror, but could just as easily have been actual horror. ‘Hemingway was a violent drunk.’

  ‘I don’t mean I like him,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he was an absolute dick. But I do like his writing. I like how you can feel he’s really burning to find some sort of meaning from life. All these obsessions with shark fishing and bull fighting and big game hunting – like, doing mad, dangerous stuff to feel more alive.’

  ‘So, basically, loads of innocent animals had to die just for one drunk guy to “feel more alive”? I think I’ll stick to Jane Austen.’

  We strolled past Jutland Bar and the computer room and the munchie machines. It was weird; it was like we were slowly finding a rhythm again. Nowhere near back to the easy banter of the Stephanie Stevens night, but not a million miles from it.

  ‘I’ve got a good book on Ted and Sylvia, actually,’ Phoebe said. ‘It was my mum’s – she was really into them. I can always lend you that if you want. Especially if we’re gonna be doing this whole presentation on them.’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be great, actually. Cheers.’

  We were now right at the end of the walkway, where the path split, with D Block to the left and B Block to the right. We both stood there for a second, fidgeting with our bags and not looking at each other.

  ‘Well . . .’ Phoebe let the word hang in the air between us. I really didn’t want her to go. I wanted to keep hanging out with her.

  ‘Maybe . . . I could get it now?’ I tried. ‘The book, I mean?’

  She fiddled with her massive scarf, and looked up at her window. Then she said: ‘Yeah. OK. Cool.’

  D Block looked exactly the same as B Block, but the absence of Arthur’s headachey cheese smell made it seem more welcoming somehow.

  Their kitchen was in a much worse state than ours, but Phoebe’s room was way tidier and nicer than mine. She’d actually bothered to decorate properly, for a start. There were pictures Blu-Tacked up all over the walls, and little, multi-coloured fairy lights strung over the sink cupboard. She reached up to get the Ted and Sylvia book from her shelf, and I squinted at some of the photos.

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘Is that . . . Book Day?’

  Among all the shots of Phoebe and her mates, there was a group picture of our whole school in Year Nine, with everyone dressed as different characters.

  ‘Yup’. She knelt on the bed next to me, and smiled as she looked at the picture. I peered harder at it, rocking forward on my knees. ‘Found you,’ I said.

  ‘The hair’s a giveaway,’ she sighed, taking a fistful of it and smoothing it out along her shoulder.

  ‘Are you . . . what?’ I looked closer, but I still had no idea. ‘A cloud?’

  She laughed. ‘I’m the mouse.’

  ‘Oh, right, I get you: the mouse.’ I nodded. ‘The mouse. The generic mouse of literature. Which mouse?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘The Gruffalo mouse. Look.’ She pointed at the girl next to her, who appeared to be dressed as the devil. ‘Flora is the Gruffalo. Do you remember Flora?’

  I did remember Flora, but I didn’t know she was called Flora. ‘Yeah, I remember her,’ I said. ‘Gruffalo and Gruffalo Mouse. That’s a bit . . . niche, isn’t it?’

  She shrugged and handed me the Ted and Sylvia book. ‘The niche stuff is the best stuff. Are you even in this picture or were you too cool for Book Day?’

  ‘Of course I’m in it,’ I pointed at tiny, spiky-haired, fourteen-year-old me, squashed in between Reece and Harry on the back row. ‘I’m the greatest literary character of all time. Boy in an Arsenal kit.’

  Phoebe made a face. ‘You wore an Arsenal kit to Book Day?’

  ‘Yeah, someone, somewhere, in the vast expanse of world literature has definitely worn an Arsenal kit. The bloke out of Fever Pitch for a start.’

  ‘The bloke out of Fever Pitch,’ Phoebe scoffed. ‘Classic.’

  ‘It is a classic, thank you very much’.

  ‘Whatever. You’re just crap at dressing up. Admit it. What did you wear to the emoji party? A smiley face, or something, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Thumbs-up, actually.’

  ‘Well, you could’ve made more of an effort,’ she laughed. And even though I knew she didn’t mean anything by it, it still made me think of the quidditch bail. And Abbey. And all the other fuck-ups I was leaving in a long trail behind me.

  Could’ve made more of an effort. That would probably be written on my fucking gravestone.

  I sighed and slumped down from kneeling to sitting on the bed. ‘Yeah, it’s true. The thing is, Phoebe, I guess I’m just, y’know . . . a bit of a prick, really.’

  I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. She just stared at me hard. Which was quite disconcerting, as we’d only really been making nervous, fluttering, two-second eye contact since we got into the room.

  ‘You’re not a prick, Luke,’ she said slowly. Then she scooched away from me slightly, and started looking at the other photos. ‘Do you remember Zoe Kenney’s seventeenth?’ she asked. ‘In her dad’s massive house?’

  ‘Er . . . yeah,’ I said, although I had no recollection of Phoebe being at that party at all.

  ‘Well, you remember when Chris Isaacs and Alex Paine and that lot showed up? They were really pissed and they started giving Justin all that shit? Going on about how his long hair made him look like a girl?’

  The memory started to defrost in my head. It was a horrible moment. They’d pushed Justin Hader on the floor and Chris had grabbed a pair of scissors, telling him they were going to give him a proper haircut. A boy’s haircut.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I remember.’

  ‘You were the one that stopped that,’ Phoebe said quietly. ‘You pulled Chris off him. You got them to leave him alone.’

  ‘Chris Isaacs and Alex Paine were the biggest twats in the whole school.’

  ‘Yeah, but they listened to you.’

  ‘Only cos I was on the football team with them.’

  ‘Yeah, well, either way . . .’ She looked at me again, right in the eyes. ‘That awful thing didn’t happen because
of you. And I remember thinking, at that moment . . .’ She tailed off, and then shook her head gently, like she was embarrassed or something. She smoothed out another fistful of her long, curly hair. ‘Well, I remember thinking Luke Taylor’s not a prick, anyway.’

  I tried to laugh, but it got stuck in my throat. It was like she’d shaken me awake suddenly, reminded me there was more to me than what had happened with Abbey. I sat there in silence on the bed next to her, pretending to look at the photos, and for the first time in for ever, I actually felt OK.

  PHOEBE

  ‘I can’t believe how long your hair is,’ Liberty said. Every time she clamped the straighteners near my head I jumped a bit, internally.

  ‘Yeah, but does it look good?’ I asked.

  ‘I have never in my life seen anything like it.’ She said it totally sincerely.

  ‘Liberty, that is not a reassuring answer. “I have never in my life seen anything like it.” That’s what people say about nuclear explosions or those people who have plastic surgery to make themselves look like cats.’

  ‘No, it’s just, you look so differe—’

  Frankie crashed in and did a sort of over-exaggerated double take. ‘What the what? Mate, what is happening?’

  She bent over next to me so her face was right in front of mine. ‘Mate, I literally didn’t recognize you. As in, this is freaking me the fuck out.’ She was shaking her head. She leant back out into the corridor and shouted: ‘Negin! Negin!’

  I jumped up and looked in the mirror. Straightened, my hair reached all the way to my bum. I actually did look like a completely different person. Frankie held her phone up and took a picture. Then she banged on my wall. Liberty had dissolved into laughter. ‘Connor! Connor!’ Where is everyone?’ Frankie stood in the middle of the room and just started shouting. ‘Becky! Nathan!’ She walked over to my bed and opened the window. ‘Anyone, please? I can’t experience this alone.’

  I cut her off. ‘OK, let’s focus. I have to see Luke in an hour.’

  Frankie made a face. ‘You’ve seen him, like, every day this week.’

  ‘I know, but today is the actual presentation.’ I looked at Liberty. ‘Should I wash it out?’

  Frankie picked out a piece of my hair and peered at it. ‘No way, I mean firstly, it could create a whole new beginning for you and Luke. As in, you could literally pretend to be another human being. Like, “Phoebe had to leave but I am – Horatia, the new person in your presentation group. I will never send a photo of you to you because I am Ho—”’

  I ignored her and turned back to Liberty. ‘Seriously, I know this represents an hour and a half of our lives, but should I wash it out?’

  Liberty shook her head. ‘No way. It’s like red lipstick, you just have to get used to it.’

  ‘What should I wear?’

  Frankie opened my wardrobe. ‘What would Horatia wear? That is the question.’

  Liberty jumped up and down. ‘I’ll lend you some of my clothes.’

  ‘Liberty, me and you have very different styles.’ Liberty’s style was unashamedly sexy. More ‘Ibiza VIP lounge’ than ‘romantic poetry seminar’. ‘I think the hair and then me turning up looking so glamorous might make people think I was—’

  ‘Horatia,’ Frankie shouted. ‘She’s like Sasha Fierce. Like, Horatia wouldn’t pretend the Luke Taylor text never happened. She’d just be all like, “Yeah, that is how I test my men. Do you wanna stroke my long straight hair or not?”’

  ‘Can we stop talking about the text?’ I pleaded.

  ‘I will never stop talking about the text,’ Frankie said, crossing her arms. ‘It’s literally the most hilarious thing that’s ever happened to me. And it didn’t even happen to me.’

  I laughed. ‘Yeah, well, I can only cope with seeing Luke if I do this weird mental exercise where I convince myself I never sent him that photo.’

  It was true. Me, Luke and Bowl-Cut Mary had met up in the library every day for the past three days, and I’d only managed to get through it by burying the text somewhere deep inside me. Just literally pretending it had never happened. But the truth was, the more we hung out, the less weird and awkward it was starting to feel.

  ‘I reckon Luke probably keeps that message as his screen saver,’ Liberty said. ‘Has he honestly never mentioned it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘So weird,’ she sighed. Then she turned to Frankie. ‘Can I have a Sasha Fierce name, too?’

  Frankie shrugged. ‘You don’t need one, mate, but yeah, OK. What about Hercules?’

  ‘Ooh, Hercules, I like tha—’

  She was cut off by Connor’s boom from the kitchen. ‘Waffles!’ I knew he was beating his chest as he said it. ‘Waaaaaaaaffles.’

  The kitchen door opened and Connor poked his head through. ‘We have made waaaaaaaffles.’

  We walked into the kitchen, where he and Nathan were standing over a machine.

  ‘You bought a waffle maker?’ I said.

  ‘Woah, you look totally different.’ Nathan seemed genuinely shocked.

  Frankie held up her phone. There was a picture of me spliced next to Cousin It. Underneath she had written ‘Freaky Friday’.

  ‘We’ve melted Smarties, Chomp bars and Honey Nut Loops together,’ Connor said proudly. ‘Although the Honey Nut Loops aren’t really melting.’

  ‘Connor, do you think I look ridiculous?’ I said.

  ‘She means do you think Luke Taylor will think she looks ridiculous?’ Frankie corrected.

  Connor shook his head. ‘I would like to say he won’t notice the hair, but you do look like a child from a Japanese horror film, so he probably will.’ The waffle maker started smoking and he flapped at it with a tea towel. ‘But, then, y’know, that’s the beauty of fancying girls, isn’t it? Never knowing what mad shit they are gonna do next. Like, wearing those wedge shoes, or having nails like Wolverine or making you take the same picture millions of times. I, personally, love it.’

  Frankie was still cuddling me so I shuffled over and we added Connor to the huddle. ‘Strangely, you’ve actually made me feel better.’

  I went and got changed into the most boring outfit I could think of; jeans and a white T-shirt. The hair was enough of a statement without Liberty’s over-the-knee boots.

  I tucked my hair into my duffle coat and packed my bag. Even aside from all the Luke stuff, I was actually a bit nervous about the presentation. It was the first thing that properly counted. As I walked to the seminar, I tried to retract tortoise-like into my hood to take attention away from my hair.

  I thought Luke was late at first, but then I saw him on the grass outside the English block, on his hands and knees.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I stood on the path looking at him.

  He smiled up at me. ‘I forgot the leaves.’

  ‘Mary will kill you,’ I laughed. ‘The leaves are like . . . the whole thing.’

  ‘Yeah, but the thing is, now that I actually need some leaves, there are none. The whole place has been covered in them and now the wind has blown them all away or something.’ He looked genuinely quite stressed.

  ‘It’s because you are looking at a patch of grass where there are no trees. Why would there be leaves when there aren’t any trees?’

  He stood up. ‘Oh yeah, right. That makes sense.’ I swear he went a tiny bit red.

  I pointed at the trees on the other side of the lake. ‘Hurry up, we’ve got time.’

  We rushed across the bridge, and I realized it was the same bridge we’d sat on back on the first night. When I looked at Luke, he was staring right up at Stephanie Stevens’ block, but neither of us said anything.

  We paced about picking up random leaves. ‘They’re a bit damp,’ he said.

  ‘OK, well, you find them and I’ll dry them with my coat.’

  He handed me a leaf and I started wiping it dry.

  ‘I mean, this whole thing is ridiculous,’ he moaned. ‘Why did we let Mary lead us down this damp-leaf-ridden path of ma
dness?’

  ‘Cos neither of us had any ideas whatsoever.’

  He handed me the last leaf and I smoothed it out. ‘They look a bit budget, but they’ll have to do.’

  We met Mary outside the seminar room. She was wearing tons of mascara and had a silver star stencilled just underneath her eye. Plus her usual baggy trousers and crop top. Was she so hot she was actually immune to the cold?

  She hugged us both. ‘Luke, have you got the leaves?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, of course. Got them yesterday.’ I shook my head and mouthed ‘twat’ at him. Then Mary did a kind of overly dramatic double take as she properly took in my hair.

  ‘Shit, Phoebs. So much hair. Such good hair. Phoebe with the good hair.’

  Luke nodded. ‘Yeah, I meant to say, earlier. It looks really different. Like, good different. I mean, it looks nice curly, too. But, like this, it also looks really . . .’ He sort of puttered to a stop as he saw Mary biting her lip. ‘Nice,’ he finished.

  Mary whistled. ‘Smooooooth. Save that silver tongue for the presentation, Taylor.’

  LUKE

  I should’ve said something about the hair earlier.

  Obviously, I’d noticed it straight away. With Phoebe, the hair is always the first thing you notice. And it did look really good. But I never know what to say in those kinds of situations. Like, if you mention it, it’s like you’re making a big thing of it. But if you don’t mention it, you’re a twat. You literally can’t win.

  We all sat down in the seminar room. Yorgos arrived and started telling us how excited he was for our presentations. He picked Martha and Scouse Paul and Katie first. They got up and opened their PowerPoint. They had a PowerPoint; we had a bag of damp leaves. I was starting to get very nervous.

  Mary looked like she literally didn’t have a care in the world. She even looked slightly bored. I nudged my notebook towards Phoebe and wrote ‘Are we fucked?’ on it. She wrote ‘POSSIBLY YES’ underneath in block capitals.

  Scouse Paul finished his monologue about Chaucer and everyone clapped. Then Yorgos started talking about how vital good research is. I had the sudden feeling that I was about to fail my first proper piece of university work.