And it takes a lot longer than it probably should to realise that although it doesn’t belong to anyone in my friendship group, I still know it very well indeed.
Better than I’d like to.
“Well,” a tall blonde girl says as I glance up, finger still paused on SEND, “if it isn’t Harriet Manners.”
And there – looming over me with an extremely confusing statement – is the one part of my life I failed to update you on: the single bullet point I completely left off.
Alexa.
stare at my arch-nemesis blankly.
Apparently as soon as a young sea-squirt finds a rock to anchor itself to, it will eat its own brain because it doesn’t really need one any more.
I think that’s possibly what’s happened to me.
This place is so safe and so comfortable – such a source of inner strength – I’m not really on my guard any longer.
Now my head is totally empty.
“What a charming surprise,” Alexa continues with another laugh, blowing on her proper, caffeinated coffee. “I didn’t realise you hung out here. Do you mind if I sit with you?”
Seriously: again?
Why does she always insist on sitting with me? The surface of the earth is 510 billion square metres. Can’t she just – for once – pick one that isn’t directly adjacent to mine?
I watch as my bully of eleven years flicks the paper that says Natalie Grey on to the floor and sits down, propping her spiky high-heeled boots on the chair that says Toby Pilgrim and flinging her handbag on to India Perez.
So much for reservations.
“You know,” she continues with a little smirk, “I wasn’t sure about this place at first, but I think maybe it’s kind of growing on me.”
I nod vaguely. “Mmm.”
“What are you drinking?” she asks curiously, staring into my cup. “Go tea!”
I blink a few times. My beverage is quite clearly not tea: it has fluffed-up milk on top and a ridiculous amount of chocolate sprinkles.
“Actually,” I say, flushing slightly, “it’s an extremely strong cappuccino. The caffeine molecule mimics the molecule adenosine and binds to natural receptors that would otherwise make you sleepy, thus keeping you – I mean me – super-awake.”
Thanks to Jasper’s drink-making skills, there’s no way she can prove this is actually a kiddy-beverage. Thank goodness this time there are no pink mini-marshmallows floating on top.
“Please,” Alexa takes another delicate sip and wiggles her eyebrows, “do tell me mo’.”
I stare at her a little longer, totally bemused. Why does she sound like an American belle from the Deep South?
Then I decide I don’t really care.
There’s a spider in the United States called the Loxosceles reclusa. Its venom is so powerful it destroys flesh: chewing up cell membranes and cutting off the blood supply. Thousands of people every year used to be badly wounded by it.
They’re not any more.
In 1984, scientists at Vanderbilt University in Nashville found the anti-venom that blocked the spider’s venom and stopped it destroying anything.
There’s a brilliant reason why I left Alexa off my list: she no longer matters. She doesn’t make me cry and she doesn’t make me hide under tables. After eleven years, I finally found the only thing in the world that could stop my bully hurting me.
Myself.
“No, thank you,” I sigh tiredly, grabbing the crossword I left yesterday under the coffee table and studying that instead.
“Maybe we can shave it for later?”
“Sure,” I say in a bored voice, writing EWER in four across: boat or vessel.
“It’s so nice to see you finally manning up.”
I nod and scribble ERINACEOUS in six down: pertaining to a hedgehog. “Uh-huh.”
The door opens with a BANG.
“We’ll really have to— OOMPH.”
I glance up just in time to see a tornado of long black hair, blue coat and grey bag as Nat rips across the cafe with Toby and India close behind her.
And sits directly in Alexa’s lap.
ature is truly incredible.
When a red fire ant is threatened, pheromones are automatically released and every other member of its ant community will come rushing to the rescue.
Team JINTH must have a similar power.
The door is still swinging: that’s how fast my entire battalion of friends has come charging in, swords drawn.
Metaphorically, obviously.
It’s not 1675, and coffee shops are no longer the illegal hub of political uprisings.
“Awwwww,” Nat says with a bright smile, lifting her feet to make herself as heavy as possible, “Alexa Roberts. You kept my seat warm for me. How sweet.”
“It’s warm?” India throws herself casually into the seat next to them and kicks off her purple suede boots. “Weird. I always assumed she’d be cold-blooded.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Toby objects, perching on the coffee table wearing a T-shirt with a tardis drawn on it that says TRUST ME, I’M THE DOCTOR. “All mammals have warm blood. Are we JINTHA now? Because we’re going to need new baseball caps.”
“What the … how the …” Alexa is worming her way out from beneath Nat and struggling to her feet, face purple, smirk completely gone. “GET THE HELL OFF ME, FREAK. You can’t just go around sitting on people!”
“Oops,” Nat shrugs with wide eyes. “The seat usually has my name on it. Or maybe you changed your name by deed poll because you’re so desperate to be me.”
“And Harriet didn’t look like she was loving your company,” India points out, propping her toes on the coffee table while her bright purple hair gleams under the fairy-lights. “It seemed like a good point to interrupt.”
In fairness, I’d have probably been more entertained if I had a single clue what Alexa was talking about.
“This place is pathetically hipster anyway,” Alexa snaps furiously, brushing her jeans down with a disgusted look on her face. “It’s a destination for jokes like you to pretend you have real lives outside of academia. You can so have it.”
HA. Told you it’s super-cool in here.
Alexa sneers at me and I stare calmly back. Captain America has a shield made of vibranium, and it’s completely indestructible. Hulk can smash it, Thor can hammer it, and nothing happens.
It feels like I finally have one too.
Smiling serenely, I lift my chin and give her my most regal expression. She absorbs it for a few seconds, clearly deeply impressed by my incredible majesty.
Then she bursts out laughing again.
“Geek,” she says, shaking her head. “Laters, Manners. I must dash. This place is yours: I wouldn’t want it anyway.”
And – with a final flick of her hand – Alexa walks away.
ome battles in life you win, and some you lose.
I think it’s obvious which one that was.
“Well,” I grin broadly, triumphantly putting my crossword down on the table. “We definitely won that one, huh, guys.”
Then I hold up my hand to high-five them all.
There’s a silence.
“Uh, Harriet,” India says, rubbing her top lip. “What are you drinking?”
Oh my God, why does everyone keep asking me that? “It’s coffee,” I say a little too defensively. “With caffeine molecules in it.”
Then I look to Nat for support, but her head is down, her shiny dark hair has fallen across her face and her shoulders are shaking.
“Did you know, Harriet,” Toby says, putting a finger on his top lip, “that in Mayan times the cocoa bean was used as currency because it was more valuable than gold?”
I blink and look back at Nat. She’s holding a finger up to her top lip now too.
OK: this is amazing.
We’ve obviously got some kind of gang gesture, even better than a high-five. My pals have become so utterly in-sync and synergised, we don’t even need to talk about it first. Tha
t’s how in tune we are with each other.
I beam and put my finger on my top lip too.
It seems a little inappropriate – especially in light of the Second World War – but who am I to question our clique motives?
This is what I love so much about us.
We work seamlessly together: like a prickle of porcupines, or a dray of squirrels, a journey of giraffes or a band of mongoo—
“Hey, genius,” Jasper says, suddenly appearing from the kitchen with a tray full of clean mugs, “you’ve got chocolate all over your face.”
Then he puts the tray down on the counter and disappears again.
I blink at the space Jasper was just standing in.
There’s a mushroom called the Omphalotus olearius that gives off a glow so bright it’s possible to read a book at night by its light. My cheeks are suddenly so luminous, I could power an entire nocturnal library.
Growing on me. Goatee. Mo’. Shave it for later. Manning up.
Must dash. Mustdash. Moustache.
Oh my God, Alexa didn’t think my expression was regal and majestic at all.
Unless she assumed I’m Abraham Lincoln.
Still shaking with suppressed giggles, Nat holds a hand-mirror up and sure enough: there’s a thick dark brown line on my upper lip and a large poo-coloured streak on my chin.
Sugar cookies.
“You know,” Toby says loyally as I bury my head in my arms with a humiliated groan, “beards actually make you 63% more likely to win a staring contest. No wonder Alexa left so quickly, Harriet.”
And that does it.
With an explosion of giggles, India and Nat collapse on the sofa and I remember again why I tend to hang out in places away from the public eye.
Maybe I didn’t win that particular battle after all.
tatistically, we each go through 396 friends in a lifetime and only keep 36 of them.
Maybe I should just keep looking.
I bet the other 392 wouldn’t spend eight whole minutes laughing at my foamy facial hair.
By the time everyone has stopped giggling – and I’m wiped clean with a series of damp cloths – normality has finally resumed.
Nat’s sipping her coconut milk latte; India’s sprawled across the sofa with her second espresso and Toby’s ploughing through a glass of hot milk. Jasper pops over occasionally to contribute another burnt biscuit or sardonic comment.
And I’ve spread my documents across the table.
Tonight is the first ever Team JINTH sleepover and I am the inaugural host. And I don’t want to sound vain, but I have arranged everything.
I’ve organised which games we’ll play and which films we’ll watch and what kind of food we’re going to eat. I’ve written a How-Well-Do-We-Know-Each-Other quiz and a Are We Really Having Fun? questionnaire so we’ll know how to improve next time.
I’ve even drawn a diagram of where on the floor we’ll sleep.
It’s going to be amazing.
“He did what?” Nat splutters into her coffee. “No.”
“He did,” India insists, grinning. “Halfway through the date, he put his leg on the table. Plop. Then he said ‘I’ve been told I have very handsome shins’.”
Nat explodes with laughter.
“The tibia is the second longest bone in the body,” Toby says, nodding. “He may have had a point.”
“So …” Nat sits forward. “What did you do?”
“I told him to get his flaming foot out of my dinner before I ate it and then I said I’d call him.”
“Ooooooh. Cold.”
“Cold call him?” Toby says in confusion. “Like a telesales person? Sometimes they ring us about windows even though we clearly have eight already.”
“When somebody says they’ll call you, it means they won’t call you. Or they’d have been more specific.”
“Yup. It’s dating speak for this is over now please go away and never speak to me again.”
“Aaaaah,” Toby nods. “I’m afraid I’ve never been rejected by a girl so I wouldn’t know.”
Nat blinks at him in silence.
“Anyway,” I say, plopping my Filofax on the table. “Gang. About tonight. The itinerary is looking shipshape, but I just need to run through a few extra components. I’ve got Telling Each Other Secrets down at 9pm, is that OK?”
“Umm,” Nat says, putting her coffee down, “actually, Harriet, about that …”
“Secrets at nine?” Toby says, pulling out a TEAM JINTH SLEEPOVER notepad. “Are you sure? I’ve got it down at 10pm. Just after the Pillow-Fight at 9:35.”
I frown and check my notes. “I’ve pencilled it in wrong. Thanks, Tobes.”
It’s been surprisingly useful having Toby as my second-in-command. It’s just too easy to forget what fun you’re supposed to be having and when.
“Harriet?” Nat says. “Hang on …”
“I’ve also bought the snacks already.” I check the list. “We just need to make sure we stick to salted after 11pm or we’re going to crash by midnight.”
“Seriously?” India says, lifting her eyebrows into dark ticks. “Are you regulating our blood sugar levels?”
“Of course not,” I laugh. “Although I think there is a kit you can buy from pharmacies. Maybe I should swing past on my way back h—”
“Harriet,” Nat says, prodding me. “Listen.”
“Natalie,” I grin. “Don’t worry! I looked up beautifying face masks on the internet and made one out of avocado, lemon and olive oil.”
“That’s not …” Nat rubs a hand over her face. “We have a problem.”
“Personalised bedding,” Toby whispers. “I told you we needed monogrammed pillows.”
Nat crosses her eyes at him.
“I can’t make it tonight, H,” she says slowly. “I’m so sorry. I know you’ve organised … everything, but there’s a textiles exam on Monday and I’m just not ready for it.”
“Oh thank God,” India sighs. “I’ve got a Head Girl presentation to prepare for lower school so I can’t come either.”
I stare at Nat and India in shock.
Human brains are 10 per cent smaller than they were 20,000 years ago, and I can actually feel mine reducing.
“But you’re half the sleepover,” I point out stupidly. “I can’t have it without you. It would just be …” I glance pointedly at Toby and Jasper.
Enough said.
“Subtle as always,” Jasper says from where he’s been cleaning the table next to us. “Guess I’d better keep my salsa and cheddar cheese face mask for myself, then.”
Toby turns to me with lit-up, hopeful eyes.
“Not going to happen,” I say quickly. Second-in-command is one thing: sleepover-for-two is quite another.
Then I collapse back into my seat.
I don’t believe this. All that effort for nothing?
Ugh. I really wish people would let me know when they’re editing my plans: this is my life they’re rearranging.
Quickly, I force myself to rally.
“Next weekend?” I say, flicking through my Filofax as Nat drains the last of her coffee and stands up. “The weekend after? Half term? Easter holidays? Bank holiday?”
India opens her mouth and shuts it again.
“Sure,” my best friend says, swinging her handbag over her shoulder and pecking me on the cheek. “We’ll sort something out.”
hey don’t sort something out at all.
It’s now mid-March – two entire weeks later – and between exams and revision, jobs and dates, we’ve only just managed to pin down a time that the five of us can actually do.
And it’s right now.
Frankly, I don’t think people really appreciate how much notice is needed to throw a decent sleepover, because I just received this:
J got night off work last minute and I’m out of college early! Drag out the sleeping bags – it’s on! Meet at cafe! Nat xx
And now I’m having a meltdown.
Biologists rece
ntly found 300 different species living among the debris floating in the ocean, including puffins, turtles, seals, whales and penguins: all of which have to wade through mountains of human detritus just to get to bed at night.
I know exactly how they feel, because that’s what my bedroom currently looks like.
Books are leaning in mountains against walls, draft essays are scattered, practice equations are crumpled. Paper is pinned over every wall: Excel sheets, schedules, timetables, Post-its.
My wastepaper basket looks ready to explode.
Ditto my dirty laundry.
A bowl of half-eaten tomato soup sits on my dressing table and I’m pretty sure my dog is in the room somewhere too but I couldn’t swear to it.
Also possibly Annabel’s cat.
The only difference between me and the poor puffins is: this mess is mine, which means it’s my responsibility to tidy it up.
In nine minutes flat.
“Harriet?” Annabel says as I charge across the room, pick up an armful of laundry and throw it into the bottom of my wardrobe. “What on earth are you doing?”
She appears in my doorway with Tabby on her hip just in time to see me ram the wardrobe doors shut with my shoulder and stick a biro through the front handles.
It’s probably a good thing she didn’t catch me using the vacuum cleaner to pick up jumpers.
Or shouting “Scourgify!” at the sock drawer.
“Cleaning my bedroom,” I say, grabbing a handful of textbooks and stuffing them on to an already exploding bookshelf. “Did you know that the average desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat?”
Then I look cautiously at mine.
I think I’m safe: it’s coming up to exam time and there’s so much paper on it I haven’t actually seen the wood in months.
“You’re cleaning your bedroom?” Annabel lifts one eyebrow. “Goodness. No wonder I was so confused. Tabitha, regard this historic event carefully. It may never happen again.”
My sister laughs and waves Dunky, her favourite grey toy donkey, at me.
So I blow her an affectionate kiss.
The minute she’s old enough, I’m going to have to explain the concept of slander. I’ve tidied my bedroom at least twice this year, so Annabel’s insinuation is very unfair.