All That Glitters (6 page)

I’m going to leave it there. I don’t think drawing my bully’s attention to a sharp metal object with a stabby point is the smartest possible decision at this precise moment.

“I’m
so
delighted you’re finally back,” she says flatly, picking one of my notepads up and staring at the T-Rex on the front with a wrinkled nose. “Overjoyed, in fact.”

“Are you?” I say tightly.

“Totally.” She’s now fiddling with my ink pot. “School’s so
dull
without somebody fun to play with.”

Which would be quite sweet if we were five and she didn’t mean the way a tiger plays with a three-legged goat or a cat plays with a mouse just before she rips it apart.

Skeletal muscle consists of 650 striated layers connected to bones, and I’m so cold and rigid now every one of my fibres feels like it’s made out of stainless steel.

This is a disaster.

Actually, no: it’s a catastrophe; a cataclysm; utter ruination. A meteorite could be about to obliterate England, and it would still be second on the Worst Things That Could Possibly Happen Today list.

There’s no
way
I can make new friends and start again with Alexa snapping at my heels. She’s going to make everybody hate me before I even get a chance.

Again.

“And I just love the look you’re going for today,” she adds in a voice so loud it could blister paint. “Ducks are so hot right now.”

Ducks?
I look down in confusion at my white jumper, orange leggings and yellow shoes and then flush bright red. She’s right: I look exactly like a member of the Anatidae family.

That is
not
the sophisticated first impression I wanted to give at all.

“Hey, you guys,” Alexa continues at the top of her voice, gesticulating with one of my pencils. Everybody in the class is now staring at us in silence. “For those of you who haven’t met Harriet Manners, we’ve known each other a really long time, haven’t we?” The frog in my stomach is now totally frozen.
No. No no no no.
“A really, really long time. Eleven years, in fact.”

“Alexa—”

“Oh, they’re just going to
love
our childhood memories, Harriet. They’re
adorable.
Do you remember when we were five and you peed yourself on the story-time carpet and they had to buy a whole library of new books?”

“OMG!” Ananya laughs from behind me. “I remember that, Lexi! That was
hilaire
.”

“
So gross
,” Liv squeaks. “Like,
ewwww
.”

I feel sick. “It was
milk
and I squeezed my carton too hard
.
”

“What about the time you took your skirt off during Year Four Cinderella and ran around the stage in your knickers?”

Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God –

“
The button fell off and I didn’t notice
.”

“And goodness, everybody,” Alexa says, taking a nice big breath while she unsheathes her claws and gets ready to rip my metaphorical intestines out. “Just
wait
until you hear about the time that Harriet Manners—”

The door smacks open.

uys!” Miss Hammond breezes into the room, carrying roughly twenty-five toilet rolls. “I just found these and had the
best
idea for our team-building game. This is going to be so much fun and—”

She abruptly stops and peers over the top of them. As if she’s protected by the world’s softest, strongest, most absorbable wall.

“Alexa Roberts?”

“Hey, miss! Wow, is your tummy feeling OK? Are they all for you?”

Miss Hammond is slowly changing colour.

Six months ago, Alexa single-handedly attempted to destroy
Hamlet
before getting detention every day for a month. From the energy crackling between them now, it looks like neither of them has forgotten about it.

“What are you doing in here?” Miss Hammond says sharply, dumping all the rolls on the desk so hard that three bounce straight on to the floor. “This is Form A. You’re in Form C, with Mr White.”

“
Am
I?” Alexa stands up and flicks her hair. “Oh no. I must have got lost on my way there, somehow. Or maybe I was just
drawn
here by some invisible and irrepressible force.”

She smiles and I can’t help thinking that if Alexa put this much obsessive compulsive behaviour into her schoolwork she’d have graduated school by now. And university. And possibly obtained some kind of PhD.

“Out,” Miss Hammond snaps, pointing at the corridor. “Now.”

“But miss …”

“
Now.
”

“I just think …”

“
Immediately
.”

“
Fine
.” My nemesis stalks towards the corridor, and then turns round. “But I think it’s really important that you all know about the time that Harriet once—”

“Nobody cares, Alexandra,” Miss Hammond snaps, slapping her hands on her desk. “And if you come near this room again, you’re suspended, effective immediately. Do I make myself clear?”

“But—”

“No buts.
Scoot
.”

Miss Hammond crosses the classroom quickly, slams the door on Alexa and pulls down the blind so we can’t see her. Then she turns back to a stunned, silent class and smooths down her skirt.

Like a warrior in 100% organic cotton.

“Right,” she says softly, and her voice is all sunshine and kittens in baskets again. “Grab a toilet roll each, guys, and let’s get out on the playing field, build teams and really
connect.
”

I’ve never brought an apple in for a teacher before, but – as almost the entire class smile at me sympathetically and start grabbing their bags – I think I might just do that.

I’m getting my fresh start after all.

o, here are some facts about toilet roll:

1. It was invented by the Chinese in 600 AD.
   
2. Britons use 110 rolls each a year, which is the equivalent of six miles of tissue.
   
3. 72% of people hang toilet paper with the first sheet going
   over
   the roll.
   
4. The US military used toilet paper to camouflage their tanks in Saudi Arabia during the Desert Storm war.
   
5. Novelty paper includes: glow-in-the-dark, money, Word of the Day and Sudoku.
   

How do I know this?

Let’s just say a few months ago I had a bad cold combined with a long car journey with Toby that I’ve never fully recovered from. I’ve sworn not to blow my nose anywhere near him again.

Miss Hammond appears to be even more excited than Toby about its possibilities.

She giddily ushers all of us outside: past the enormous tug-of-war being conducted by Mrs Baker, beyond a taciturn Mr Bott and small groups constructing tables out of newspaper, far away from Mr White and rings of students passing balloons between their knees and laughing.

(Every couple of minutes there’s a loud BANG that I suspect is not unrelated to Alexa.)

“Right,” Miss Hammond says cheerfully, planting a stick in the ground with a stripy pink sock taped to the end. “We had a
very
enlightening teacher training session yesterday, didn’t we, Harriet?”

The whole class turns to look at me.

Excellent. Now I look like an undercover teacher trainer.

“And we were reminded of how we are all part of the
same beautiful puzzle
. Held together by the invisible
threads of harmony and happiness.
” She pauses. “Please stop hitting Robert with the roll of tissue, Eric.”

“But we’re just bonding, miss,” Eric objects, doing it again. “Our thread of happiness depends on it.”

“Lovely! That’s the spirit!” She beams at us all and then gestures at a blonde girl to take her roll off the top of her head. “So we’re going to play a little game to help us form lifelong
connections.
After all, there’s no
me
in team!”

“Yes, there is,” Christopher objects. “It is literally right there.”

“And meat.”

“Mate.” “Meta.” “Atem.”

“That’s not how you spell atom, idiot.”

“See how you’re already working together?” Miss Hammonds claps. “So in a
burst
of inspiration, I am calling this game
The Riddle of the Mummy
.”

Liv’s hand goes up.

“Mine is in Vegas right now, miss. She goes there after every summer holiday to recover.”

“Er, excellent, Olivia! And your eventual arrival, Mr King, is always a pleasure, however unpredictable.”

A boy in a yellow T-shirt shrugs and takes a place at the back of the group.

“So,” Miss Hammond continues brightly, “I’m going to ask you all riddles, and in teams of three you’ll try to answer them as quickly as possible. The team that gets it right first gets to take three steps towards
The Sock of Survival
.”

I can feel an excited, fizzy feeling starting to run down the back of my neck.

I
love
riddles.

They’re like facts, except backwards and you can solve them and that’s even better. Plus, competition really helps to sharpen my mind and bring out the best in me. Miss Hammond couldn’t have picked a better way for me to make new friends if I’d sent in a handwritten request form.

Which I didn’t, just to clarify.

“To make things a bit more jolly,” she continues, beginning to wind the end of a loo roll round her ankle, “I’m going to turn myself into an Egyptian mummy and chase you, to help motivate you to keep moving forward! If I tap you on the shoulder, you become a mummy too and you’re out of the race. And so on and so forth.”

Oh my God.

This is getting better and better. I love ancient history
too
(although mummies technically originated in South America but maybe that’s not super relevant to the game right now).

Miss Hammond keeps winding the tissue until it’s binding her legs together like a penguin after knee surgery.

“The team that reaches The Sock of Survival first – without all turning into mummies – wins!”

A flurry of hands immediately go up.

“What do we win, miss?”

“The satisfaction of knowing you did it together!” There’s a pause while all the hands come down again, and Miss Hammond adds slightly reluctantly: “And a ten-pound voucher for the school tuck shop.”