“Well,” I say excitedly as Nat pulls a green dress out and holds it against me with narrowed eyes, “it’s going to be pretty amazing, Nat. I’ve thought of everything, and almost everyone in my form has RSVPd, I think. Quite a lot of the boys’ football team, the girls’ netball team …”
“Maybe with blue shoes,” Nat murmurs, now lost on Planet Fashion. “Silver? Black?”
“Most of my biology class,” I continue happily, ticking them off on my fingers. “Physics and maths. Lydia and her friends.”
“Gold,” Nat says triumphantly. “Gold shoes, green dress, earrings in … silver?”
“And then my new gang, obviously.” I hold my hands up thoughtfully. “So that’s India – she’s new and she’s got this really cool bright-purple hair I think you’d love – Liv and Anan—”
Both Nat and the green dress suddenly go very still.
Oh my God.
What is wrong with me? Why isn’t there a draft box in my head to save statements like that before I say them? We were doing so well.
“What?” Nat says sharply, all signs of giggling now gone. “What did you just say?”
“Uh.” I stare past my best friend’s left ear for a few seconds, brain now scrabbling desperately. “Liver and onion, that’s what India and I call ourselves. We’re all like, Hey, Liver and Onion! How you doing, Liver and Onion?” I cough. “It’s an … umm … Leeds thing.”
Sorry, Leeds.
In April 2005, a pond in Hamburg made international news when toads started exploding for no apparent reason. Judging by the colour my best friend’s face is now turning, exactly the same thing is about to start happening here.
I bend down quickly and pick up the cardboard box of fun.
“Liv and Ananya? Did you just say your new gang is Olivia and Ananya?”
“Well …” I’m sidestepping out of the room now like a nervous morris dancer. “It’s not a gang exactly, Nat. That was a bit of an overstatement. It’s more like an … informal group. A good thesaurus might say it was a squad, or a troop or even a—”
And Nat promptly goes BANG.
act: the toads didn’t explode for no reason at all.
Everyone just thought they did.
Eventually a top amphibian expert, Franz Mutschmann, realised crows had pecked out and eaten their livers, leaving the toads to explode from their own protective swelling.
Which is a bit disgusting, so I’m sorry about that.
Although it’s worth noting that maybe the collective noun is a murder of crows for a reason.
What I’m trying to say is: Nat’s not exploding inexplicably. It might look to the untrained eye like she is, but I am an expert on Natalie Grey and I understand it perfectly.
It’s only ten steps to the bedroom door.
If I can use this cardboard box as a protective shield there’s a remote chance of getting out of here without being blown to shreds first.
“ANANYA AND LIV?” Nat yells as I quickly trundle towards the exit. “YOUR NEW BEST FRIENDS ARE ANANYA PEREZ AND OLIVIA WEBB?”
“Girls?” her mum calls up the stairs. “Keep it down or take it into the attic.”
“Alexa’s henchmen?” Nat hisses in a lower voice.
“They’re not her henchmen any more,” I try to explain, shuffling another step. “Actually, they’re on my side now.”
“Why would you want them on your side? They’re horrible. And I don’t know who this ‘India’ girl is, but if she’s hanging about with them I guarantee she’s just as bad, if not worse. She probably wants something from you. Are you doing her homework for her, or something?”
My cheeks are getting hot and my stomach feels like I’ve been eating aeroplane again. “That’s a terrible thing to say, Nat. You don’t know them.”
“I totally do, Harriet. They’ve been cheerleading behind Alexa for the last eleven years. Sneaking around, yes sir, no sir, three muppets full, sir. Next you’ll be telling me she’s coming to your party too.”
There’s a short silence.
“Alexa really wanted to come,” I say defensively, taking another step towards the door. “She told me she did, she said we could have a clean start and—”
“No,” Nat says, eyes widening. “Oh my God, you have got to be kidding me. This isn’t what I … It wasn’t in the … Have you forgotten everything they did?”
“Of course not.” My cheeks are getting hotter and hotter. “But they’re all sorry, Nat. I’m sure they are. We were only children – everyone should get a second chance and people change, don’t they? I mean, I have so—”
“No, they don’t.” Nat grabs the edge of the cardboard box closest to her and tugs it, hard. “When are you going to learn this lesson, Harriet? People don’t change. You’re not having a party with them. No. Nu-uh. I forbid it.”
I try not to think about Ananya turning on Jasper earlier – she was just worried about me, she didn’t mean it – as something in my chest starts to burn.
I can hear Alexa’s voice again: You think things are going to change? You think things are going to be different now?
Has everything I’ve done been for nothing?
“You forbid it?” I tug the box back. “I’m sorry, are you the entirety of the British legal system?”
“Don’t be so incredibly naive, Harriet.” Nat tugs on the box again. “They’re using you. A total idiot could see that.”
My chest burns a little bit more.
“Using me for what? And I’m naive for thinking people might actually just like me? I’m an idiot for believing I’m worth spending time with?”
“That is not what I …”
“So you’re allowed new friends and a new boyfriend and a new life, and I just have to sit on my own for the next two years, is that it?”
“Why are you being like this?” Nat frowns. “Is this really about Nick? Because if it is …”
And – with an enormous eruption – the burn in my chest comes roaring out of me like a volcano.
“This is not about Nick!” I yell at the top of my voice. “Everything in the world is not about Nick! HE IS GONE AND HE IS NOT COMING BACK. This is about me, Nat. Me! My story is not over just because he’s not here.”
Nat blinks, but it’s all still bursting out like lava in one steady, bubbling stream. “And I’m trying as hard as I possibly can to move forward, and now you’re taking it all away from me! You’re ruining it!”
“Harriet! How can you even think I …”
But I’ve been holding on to this for too long now and there’s nowhere left inside me to keep it all.
“You left, Nat.” My chin is starting to wobble and I tug on the box more sharply. “Don’t you understand that? You left me on my own. You chose college, then you chose Theo, and now you’re always busy and you’re never around and what was I supposed to do?”
I tug the box again.
“But Harriet I only said I was busy because—”
“And you know what?” The flames are rising up: into my cheeks and flicking between my eyebrows. “Maybe I’m glad you’re gone. Maybe I’m glad you’re not around. Maybe this is what we both needed, because maybe you’re the one who’s been holding me back in the first place.”
Nat goes very still. “What?”
I want to stop. I need to stop.
But the lava is hurtling down the mountain. It’s burning everything and everyone who gets in its way, and there isn’t a single thing inside me that can halt it.
“My life is better without you in it, Nat. I’m more confident. I have friends. People like me. I’ve moved on. Maybe this is what’s supposed to happen. I mean, it’s not as if we have anything in common any more anyway.”
The colour suddenly drains from Nat’s face, as if somebody’s pulled some kind of plug inside her. She stares at me in silence for a few seconds, then her eyes get very bright and very hard.
“Right,” she hisses, tugging hard at the box. “I’ve heard enough. This isn’t yours ?
?? let go.”
“No.” I tug back. “It’s not yours either. You let go.”
“Let GO.”
“You let go.”
“YOU.”
“You.”
“HARRIET. LET. GO. OF. THE. BLOODY. BOX.”
And – with one almighty rip – we both tug on NAT AND HARRIET’S WORLD OF FUN at exactly the same time and it splits right down the middle.
Exploding on to the floor between us.
e stare at the mess for a few seconds in silence.
Scrabble tiles and Monopoly hotels have gone everywhere. Face paints have smashed into pieces. Deflated balloons with little eyes and mouths have rolled under the bed and a tail from an old donkey is lying on top of my foot.
Organs have been spilt: there’s a kidney and pancreas from an old game of Operation still rocking back and forward slightly on the floorboards.
Old blue glitter is spread across the rug.
Then – with astonishing speed – Nat bends down and sweeps it all up into her arms. The Maglev train in Shanghai is the fastest train in the world, but at this moment I feel like Nat could probably beat it.
She runs towards the door.
“Don’t!” I shout after her, because I know exactly what she’s going to do and if she does I don’t know how we’re going to fix it. “DO. NOT. DO. THIS!”
But Nat does it anyway.
Without a word, she runs to the bathroom and lobs every house, every chess piece, every card, every paint, straight into the toilet.
Then she pulls the chain.
Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, eleven years start to disappear in front of us.
Every late-night giggle. Every shared nose snort.
Hours and hours of Cinderella and Shrek. Hundreds of soda floats and pizzas and muffins.
Years and years of hiding under a duvet together, with a torch, so we could stay up a little later. Doing whatever we could to make the night last longer. To spend a bit more time together: just the two of us.
All spinning and turning until they’ve totally vanished.
Gone.
“There,” Nat snaps, facing me coldly. “Now we don’t have anything in common any more.”
We stare at each other, shoulders heaving up and down.
“Maybe you shouldn’t come to my party after all,” I say finally. “I think maybe we need some space.”
“I agree,” Nat hisses, face completely white. “After all, I wouldn’t want to hold you back any more than I have already.”
And with a firm kick of the radiator Nat storms out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Now, I know a lot about space.
I know it’s big, and dark, and lonely, and we don’t really understand it. I know that all stars are moving away from each other, and that the galaxies at the outer reaches of the universe are racing away from us at ninety per cent of the speed of light.
But as I let myself out of the bathroom and start charging angrily home, I can’t help wondering if maybe that’s what is happening to Nat and me too.
Because it feels like my universe and everything in it is slowly pulling apart.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
here’s an altitude point that occurs between 18,900 to 19,350 metres above sea level, called Armstrong’s Line. It’s the exact level where atmospheric pressure becomes so low that water boils at 37°C.
In other words: precisely the temperature of the human body.
My blood is now bubbling so fast I suspect I may have crossed it.
In a fury, I rip home and charge straight up the stairs.
I fling open my cupboard and get my Arts and Crafts kit out. I pull out my baking kit and my notepad. And I start party-preparing like I have never prepared for anything before in my life.
And as I prepare, I chatter angrily.
“Oh I’m sooooo fashionable and cool,” I snap as I start blowing up balloons and squeakily drawing on them with pens. “Oh I know sooooo much about eyeshadow,” I mutter as I cut little shapes out of shiny paper. “Oh I am just sooooo pretty with my swishy black hair and my glowing brown skin and I never ever get zits because I eat allll my vegetables and drink two whole litres of water a day.”
Then I realise I’m essentially just being really nice about Nat under my breath, which isn’t making me feel any better at all.
So I focus my anger and give it another shot.
“Fickle and disloyal,” I hiss as I mix flour in with eggs. “Volatile,” I complain as I shape ham and cheese sandwiches. “Nowhere near as good at Jenga as she thinks she is.”
That’s more like it.
In an angry whirlwind – not unlike the Tasmanian devil, the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial and generally deemed to have one of the worst tempers on the planet – I whizz round the house: cutting and sticking, baking and mixing. I paint and blow up, pop accidentally and blow up again. I attach strings and ribbons and twinkle and put things in cardboard boxes.
But it’s still not enough.
By the end of Thursday night, I’m nowhere near ready, and I’m definitely not calm. In fact, I’m more charged up than ever. Instead of defusing, the anger is just hardening and stiffening like cement between each of my cells until I lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling because I’m now too rigid to roll over.
This isn’t just a party any more. It’s a battle.
A battle made of streamers and balloons and music and carefully arranged snacks, and I have to win.
I’m going to show Nat.
She’s going to rue the day she ever doubted me. I’ll throw such a successful party, such an amazing party, that she will be forever known as The Girl Who Had Nothing To Do With It, Actually. For the rest of time, Natalie Grey will be asked where she was the night Harriet Manners triumphed socially, like the first time humans walked on the moon.
And any ideas I had for Friday night – which were quite a few anyway – are now accelerated, heightened, turbo-charged.
There is nothing I will not do to make my party victorious.
With a bolt of defiant adrenaline, I bounce out of bed on Friday morning and carefully pack everything away neatly in the car so that Dad and Tabby can help me drive it to The Venue.
I remind my father, for the billionth time, that he’s not invited.
I listen to It’s so unfair another 1,298 times.
Then I use every breaktime, lunchtime and all of my free periods at school to run out and start setting things up. I specifically hired a venue as close to school as possible so it would be convenient for everyone to get there.
Not least me.
“Can’t we help?” Ananya says as I trot out of the front gates for the third time, holding a pair of scissors (upside down, obviously – I don’t have a death wish). “Are you sure there isn’t anything we can do? Can’t we at least be at the gates to greet people?”
“We so want to be involved,” Liv explains, chewing on a nail. “It’s the best theme ever, I can’twaittoseewhocomesandwhatthey’rewearingand—”
“Olivia,” India sighs, putting a hand over her eyes. “Stop. Only killer whales can hear you now, and as far as I know, none of us are members of the orca family.”
“Sorry, Indy. ButI’mgoingtofangirlsohardandohmyGodI’mbringingmyphoneandcameraand …”
India slowly lifts her bag and puts it in front of Olivia’s face until she stops talking.
“That’s so nice of you all,” I say, shaking my head. “But I really want this to be a big surprise for everyone, so I’d like to do it myself, if that’s OK?”
“Absolutely,” Ananya says, nodding sweetly. “Just know we’re here if you need us. For anything. Anything at all.”
By my fourth visit, I can feel the cement running thro
ugh me starting to soften again.
The Venue has finally started taking shape.
As each table goes up, as food gets carefully laid out in strategically planned and organised patterns, as decorations get pinned to the walls and the ceiling, lights are unplugged and re-plugged, and a corner is set aside for a dance floor, I start to fill with a warm, confident glow of satisfaction.
And by the time I’ve quickly run home, jumped into the shower and tugged on my brand-new outfit, there’s no question in my mind that I’ve done the absolute best I can possibly do.
Now there’s nothing left to do but wait.
ou already know what the theme is, by the way.
Of course you do.
If you’ve been paying attention, and if your mind works like mine does – in a logical, strategic, slightly obsessive-compulsive kind of way – there was really only one possible choice: one area I knew I could shine in.
But – just in case you’ve missed it – here’s the invitation:
Let’s be honest: it was the only option that wasn’t dinosaurs or group-solved crossword puzzles.
And yes, I know the Shakespeare quote is from The Merchant of Venice and is technically “all that glisters” but glisters sounds a bit too much like blisters and I don’t want people at my party getting accidentally confused and coming as one of those instead.
At 7:59pm exactly, I count down the last ten seconds of the hour as calmly as I can.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two –
Then I fling the doors open wide.
I’m wearing a gold T-shirt customised all over with black star stickers, black leggings individualised carefully with tiny gold stars and a black headband with a large cardboard gold star stuck to the front. And I’ve used every single make-up trick I learnt in Morocco to help make me look suitably celestial.
Gold eyeshadow and eyeliner, highlighter, a bit of twinkle spray that’s supposed to be used on trees at Christmas.
Behind me are reams and reams of hand-dyed black sheets, hanging from ceiling beams, with white fairy lights also borrowed from our family Christmas box wound carefully round them. The floor is covered in little hole-punched silver circles, and precisely three hundred and fifty hand-cut gold and silver paper stars are stuck to the ceiling in accurate constellations: Chamaeleon, Octans, Reticulum, Indus, Pavo, Norma, Carina, Volans.