This is it. This is going to change everything.
From this point onwards, I will no longer be Harriet Manners, pee-er on books, skirt-dropper and irrational lover-of-bananas. I’ll be the Riddle Master. Sweet Winner. Saviour of Socks. Avoider of Mummies and Destroyer of Toilet Rolls.
This is going to be amazing.
Miss Hammond starts grouping people together, and then hops over to me. “Harriet Manners? I’ve put you with India Perez and Olivia Webb.”
I smile shyly as the girl with neon purple hair and Liv walk towards me. India smiles back and my insides do another excited little frog hop: and so my new close and irreplaceable lifelong friendships start.
Honestly, I’m kind of fascinated by her already.
Apparently Queen Elizabeth the First used to pretend that there was a piece of glass between her and the rest of the world to make her feel more royal, and it kind of seems like India has one too. Beneath My Little Pony hair and scowling eyebrows, she has dark eyes and an air of dignity and nobility. She reminds me of a powerful Egyptian princess.
We are definitely going to win now.
“Anya!” Liv calls as we stand behind a line made out of skipping rope. “Ans! A! Ani! Over here! We’ll totally share answers, right?”
India frowns as Ananya pretends to have temporarily lost her hearing facilities.
“You will totally not,” she says steadily. Then she turns to me. “Does this sort of exercise happen a lot at this school? Because it would have been extremely useful to have that in the brochure.”
“Umm, I think it says We are a school dedicated to the creative exploration of the individuality of our students,” I admit. “Page eight. Halfway down, under the photo of people making forts out of boxes.”
India lifts a black eyebrow so it looks like a tick at the end of an essay. “Did you memorise the sixth form brochure?”
“N-no,” I lie. “I just … umm …” Sound more hip, Harriet. “I used that page as kindling to build a really cool fire … for no reason, because I … err, burn stuff I don’t care about, etcetera.”
India puts her eyebrow back down.
“OK,” she says, and I relax again.
I think I just passed my first social test.
“All right, my little intrepid puzzlers!” Miss Hammond calls, now covered head to toe in white, like an overexcited golden Labrador puppy. “Are you ready to journey back 5,000 years to a time of mystery and intrigue?”
There’s a chorus of “yeah,” “suppose so,” “whatever,” “I guess,” are we going to be recycling all this tissue because this is kind of environmentally unfriendly?”
(That last one was me.)
“And …” She shakes a tiny tambourine that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. “Go!”
t starts off perfectly.
“How far,” Miss Hammond says, looking up and down the line, “can a person run into the woods?”
There’s a short silence while people whisper.
“We don’t know how big the woods are,” India murmurs as our group crowds its heads together. “There must be information missing. That can’t be the whole question.”
I grin at the other two while my brain clicks away happily. This is so much fun already. It’s so intimate. So bonding. I really feel like part of a team.
“I’ve got this one,” I whisper back conspiratorially, and then stick my hand up. “Halfway, miss. Because if you run any further, you’re running back out of them again.”
“Excellent, Harriet Manners! Take three steps forward!”
I high-five Liv and India like BFFs and we move towards our goal. Miss Hammond closes her eyes, shuffles forward with a small embalmed-dead-person groaning sound and taps Robert on the shoulder.
“Ah, man,” he says as he starts wrapping himself up in toilet tissue. “This is utter b—”
“Language, Robert.” Miss Hammond claps her hands. “I am the beginning of the end, and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. What am I?”
“God!” Christopher’s group yells.
“Santa Claus!”
“Taylor Swift!”
“Nope!” Miss Hammond says to all three groups. “Sorry! Take a step backwards, guys.”
I wink at my group jubilantly as two more people are reluctantly ingratiated into ancient Egypt.
“You are the letter E, miss,” I say loudly.
“I am indeed, Harriet!” We step forward again. “What loses its head in the morning but gets it back at night?”
My hand goes straight up, with the speed of a question-answering ninja. “A pillow!”
And – riddle by riddle, answer by answer – my group starts racing towards the goal. I know what is so fragile that saying the word breaks it (silence). I know what has many keys but can’t open a door (a piano) and what gets wetter and wetter the more it dries (a towel).
Between us, we even know how many months have twenty-eight days in them. India lowers her head to whisper, although we’re so far ahead by now that there’s no real point.
“All of th—”
“Four!” I shout in excitement. “Twenty-eight days hath September, April, June and November!”
“I’m afraid it’s all of them,” Miss Hammond says gently. “All months have at least twenty-eight days. One step back, team.”
Oops.
But luckily it doesn’t matter if we make a mistake now and then, because nobody can catch up. We’re too far ahead for even the mummies to grab us.
Finally, we get within touching distance of the sock.
Studies have shown that during competitive games, cortisol, prolactin, testosterone and adrenocorticotropic hormone levels increase dramatically. I’m now so rabid with excitement I’m basically floating on a fluffy cloud of my own chemical cocktail.
It’s just my team, Christopher and Raya left.
“What kind of room has no doors or windows?”
My mind starts racing, jittering, turning itself inside out and back again. A prison? No, because how would you get in or out? Maybe a cellar, if a trapdoor in the floor didn’t count as either …
Is it a play on words? A groom, a broom, a …
“A cupboard?” Raya suggests, but I suddenly know. Wham. As if my brain was in the dark and a light’s just been switched on: once you see the answer, you can’t unsee it.
I punch the air.
“I’ve got it!” I yell, and beam triumphantly at Liv and India. “It’s a mush-room, miss!”
Then, with three quick hops, I reach the sock and start automatically doing my happy dance: hands punching the air, knees bent, bottom wiggling.
“We win!” I squeak jubilantly. “We win we win we win! Wooooooooo!!!”
y cheeks are flushed. My knees are shaking.
All the standard responses to success, adrenaline and unexpected physical activity.
I knew it. Best. Day. Ever.
This is exactly like Rebecca’s birthday party eleven years ago when I won all the games. We played Pass the Parcel and I explained the rules to anyone who held on to the package for too long, and Musical Chairs where I encouraged anyone who was walking too slowly to hurry up, and Musical Statues when I helpfully pointed out people who were moving and … and …
And nobody wanted to play with me ever again.
Cucumbers consist of ninety-five per cent water. Without warning, it suddenly feels as if I may have become one. Every cell in my body is rapidly turning into liquid.
No. No no no no.
I abruptly stop wiggling my bottom and – with infinite slowness – turn around.
And there it is.
Every single one of my peers is standing in silence: arms folded, faces sullen. Glaring at me with narrowed eyes and raised eyebrows. Unimpressed. Outraged. Bored stiff by a game they haven’t participated in.
Precisely the same as when we were five, except they’re considerably bigger now and even angrier because this time they’re c
overed in broken up bits of toilet roll and they’re not quite sure why.
Oh my God: I’ve done it again.
I was so desperate for my team to win, I didn’t think about anything else. I was trying my hardest, but in doing so I’ve made the entire game about …
Well. Me, I guess.
With a sick lurch, I’m suddenly not so sure I need Alexa to make me unpopular after all.
Oh, who am I even kidding?
Maybe I never actually did.
Swallowing, I turn slowly to Liv and India. Their arms are folded as well. I hold up my hand to awkwardly high-five them. “We won, guys. Yay?”
They both stare at it, suspended in the air. The loneliest hand that has ever existed in the 65 million years since our primate ancestors first evolved them.
“Not really,” India says finally. “You won, Harriet. All by yourself.”
And – as she turns in silence and starts walking back to the sixth-form building, followed by every member of my class – I can’t help but marvel at the irony.
Because, despite my best efforts, all by myself is exactly how I’ve ended up.
he poet John Donne once wrote that no man is an island. I’d like to seriously question the accuracy of that statement.
In the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,700 miles from Antarctica, lies Bouvet Island. It has an area of forty-nine kilometres squared, is covered in glaciers and ice, and nobody lives there or ever has. According to Wikipedia, it is the remotest island in the world.
Thanks to today’s misadventures, it is still a more popular destination than me.
The rest of the morning can be summarised thus:
I apologise to India and Liv and give them my share of the tuck-shop voucher.
They tell me it’s fine, honestly, and then avoid me.
I overhear a girl in maths say I’m “still an arrogant, weird know-it-all”.
I briefly consider telling her that weird originally meant “has the power to control fate” and if that was true I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
I realise it’ll prove all three points and think better of it.
News of my unsporting smugness and apparent In Your Face dance spreads around sixth form with the speed of a forest fire. By the time I get out of double physics with Mr Harper, it’s everywhere.
I try to outrace it – attempting to start friendly conversations with strangers as fast as I can – but it’s impossible. The flame hops from student to student via whispers and raised eyebrows until all I’m doing is circling the common room like a desperate squirrel with its tail combusting.
I’m smiling, trying to find things in common, asking questions and remembering details as hard as I can.
But it’s too late.
My seven seconds are up. The first impression has been made, and with every attempt to undo it I just look even more pathetic. It doesn’t matter what I do or what I say any more.
I am the school weirdo.
Again.
By the time I’m ejected from my sixth failed conversation attempt (“Did you know that pirates used to wear gold hoop earrings because they thought it improved their eyesight?”) I’ve officially given up.
I haven’t seen Toby all morning. I should probably focus the remainder of my efforts on the one person in the year that still wants to talk to me.
But he’s not in the common room, he isn’t in the dining hall and when I take my lunch to his normal spot in the bush behind the gym hall, he’s not there either.
Seriously. For a stalker, Toby is becoming ridiculously difficult to track down.
By the time I eventually find him, tucked into the corner of the art studio, I’ve basically resigned myself to playing noughts and crosses on the floor of the playground. I’ve already got two chalks ready, just in case I can persuade a year seven to play with me.
Although, given how quickly my leper status is whizzing around the school, even that’s looking optimistic.
“Hey, Toby!” I say, pushing through the art room door. He looks up with slightly mad eyes, like a miniature Albert Einstein except without the moustache or Nobel prize.
“Harriet Manners!” he says, pulling his earphones out and quickly flipping over a piece of paper in front of him. “What an unprecedented surprise!”
I am so, so happy to see him.
“Are you having lunch in here today?” I say, bouncing forward and slamming my satchel enthusiastically on the table. “Did you know that in the average lunchtime you eat 150,000 kilometres of DNA? Although I’m afraid this cheese sandwich may have a few less, judging by the state of the lettuce.” I plop it on the desk in front of him.
“Want to share?”
Toby gently pushes the sandwich off his piece of paper and brushes a few crumbs away.
“That’s very kind of you, Harriet. But Mum made me sushi.” He prods a little Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox on the chair next to him. “Except we didn’t have any fish so it’s beef and I’m not keen on wasabi so it’s mustard.” He opens it and peers in. “With bread instead of rice.”
“So,” I say slowly, “it’s a beef sandwich, then?”
“Absolutely,” Toby agrees, holding one up. “Except Mum cut the crusts off and rolled it up into little balls so I’d feel like I was getting an interesting cultural experience.”
I grin and glance briefly around the room.
Thanks to a total lack of artistic interest and even less ability, I’ve spent as little time as possible in this part of the school. There are paints and brushes everywhere, bright canvases leaning against walls and a general atmosphere of creativity.
I don’t like it.
Entirely subjective grades make me uncomfortable.
Toby looks, if possible, even more out of place. The front of his brown T-shirt says COME TO THE NERD SIDE – WE HAVE PI and he’s wearing trousers with an electronic computer keyboard across the lap, though he isn’t actually plugged into a computer. At the moment anyway.
“So what are you doing?” I say, sitting down on the edge of his desk and reaching curiously for the piece of paper.
Toby moves it away. “It’s my project for the Science Fair.”
“Oooh.” The Fair isn’t for another three months, but maybe I need to get started on mine too. “What’s yours on? Can I see?”
“I’m afraid not,” Toby says, shifting the paper into his satchel. “Showing you would jeopardise its top-secret status by definition of it no longer being a secret of any kind.”
“That’s very true.” I frown. “So if it’s science why are you in the art room?”
There’s a tiny pause while Toby stuffs a sushi-sandwich in his mouth, and then says:
“It’s quiet and private and away from … people.”
“Cool.” I look at the sunshine streaming through the windows. “I might do my project on the effect of music on animal behaviour using Hugo and Victor as voluntary subjects, or maybe study the Oort cloud because the edge of it is 4.6 trillion miles from the sun so I can investigate the composition of the—”
“I have a question for you,” a voice interrupts from behind me. “Maybe you can add this to your investigation while you’re at it.”
I spin round in surprise.
Somebody is sitting in the corner near the door, almost totally hidden behind an enormous sculpture of an angel made out of plaster, clay and wire. I had no idea there was anyone else in here: that’s how quiet they are and how big the sculpture is.
And how little my genuine interest in the art room has been, obviously.
“Umm,” I say, blinking a few times. I do love a good question, after all. “Sure. Hit me with it.”
“Do you ever,” the voice says, “and I mean ever, think about anyone other than yourself?”
And I don’t even know who they are yet.
But I asked them to hit me with it, and it feels like they just did.
pparently, there are over 6,000 languages in the world and by the
turn of this century half of these are expected to die out. Judging by my speechlessness at this precise moment, my brain thinks English is one of them.
“S-sorry?” I finally manage.
Then I take a few steps forward until I can see a boy behind the sculpture.
He’s pale and tall, with mousey hair, thick dark eyebrows and a round face, and – for some reason I can’t fathom – he looks slightly magical. It’s only as I get a few metres away that I realise he has two slightly different coloured irises: one pale blue, the other light brown.
Otherwise known as heterochromia iridis and entirely a result of melanin levels in the eyes rather than enchantment or a Harry Potter spell.
Sadly. I checked.
“Seriously,” the boy growls, grabbing some clay and sticking it into the angel’s leg, “I’ve never known anyone so obnoxiously wrapped up in themselves. It’s quite amazing.”
His magical quality takes another enormous step down.
“Sorry? We haven’t even met, have we? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you before in my entire life.”
The boy looks at me steadily for a few seconds.
“I’m in your form. I was in the team next to you this morning. For a full hour.”
I get a little closer, and – now I’m not distracted by the thought that he might be a wizard – I can see that, yup: he’s the new boy in the yellow T-shirt who was late this morning, except now he’s disguised by blue overalls.
In fact, I think when we went back to the form room at the end of team-building to do the register he was sitting at the desk directly in front of me as well.
OK. The defence isn’t looking good right now. Annabel would tell me to start plea-bargaining immediately.
Instead, I automatically go on the counterattack.
“Well,” I say, desperately sticking my nose in the air and crossing my arms, “you didn’t say hello to me either.”
“Yes, I did,” he retorts bluntly. “Twice. You were too busy telling India about the essay you wrote for your English exam. Four months ago.”