response you think of five minutes after a conversation has finished – well, that’s me. For someone who’s supposed to be quite clever, I seem to spend a lot of my time feeling incredibly stupid.
As you can probably gather, the reason that Amie Bellairs and I don’t speak in the mornings is not only because we have nothing in common, but because we exist in different universes. She is a part of what I privately refer to in my head as ‘the A Group’ – not that they have anything as lame as an official name or I would ever say this to their faces. They’re ‘A’ not only because they’re clearly at the top of the pile – pretty, reasonably clever but not unusually so, the ones who always seem to know whether it’s cooler to wear your school shirt tucked in or out – but because a bizarrely high proportion of them seem to have names that begin with the letter ‘A’. As well as Amie, there’s an Alice, Amanda and two Alexandras (Alex and Lexy). Other than the anomaly that is Katey Sewell – but she’s tiny and elfin and the most gorgeous thing you’ve seen in your life, so of course she’s in the A Group regardless of name.
It’s kind of a weird thing. I don’t really want to be like them, but I’m jealous of them anyway. I just wish I could fit in as easily as that, but I seem to be incapable of it. My mum says it’s because I’m a Gemini – I can never make up my mind about anything.
A couple of other girls come in before I bother to abandon my book, knowing it’s only going to be Sabrina Robinson, who’s too busy talking to her boyfriend on her mobile phone to notice that anyone else is even in the building, and then Alice Pincott, whose first initial says it all. These few minutes are the worst, every morning. With Sabrina otherwise engaged and oblivious, Amie and Alice huddle up together and begin a gossipy, whispered conversation. Every so often they will dramatically ‘shush’ each other and giggle, then glare in my direction as if to punish me for daring even to be in the same room as them. You’d think I was going to sell my story to the tabloids from the fuss that they make.
As usual, I could almost cry with joy by the time Nathalie bursts into the room, cheeks flushed and crazy curls flying, barely managing to hold a schoolbag and coordinate her limbs at once.
‘Hey.’ A few sheets of paper go flying out of her folder as she sits down next to me. ‘Did you do the French homework? I couldn’t even understand the first question.’
Poor Nathalie didn’t even want to stay on for A levels – her scary mum not only insisted, but made her take all the academic subjects that she’s crap at. Anyway, I feel her pain – I’m able to come to her rescue in French, but I know what it’s like to be completely clueless at a subject. I thought that starting the A level course would be brilliant because I could finally concentrate on the things I’m good at and enjoy – English, French, Spanish and AS Sociology – and if everything had gone according to plan, it would have been. Unfortunately, I’ve never had a brain for Maths – I just don’t get it. I didn’t even manage to scrape a pass at GCSE, and the school would only let me keep my scholarship and stay on for sixth form if I signed up to take a resit this summer. So, embarrassingly for someone who’s always been in the top stream for everything else, I am doing one-to-one remedial maths tuition this year.
While Nathalie is halfway through painstakingly copying my French verb conjugations – although she promised to add in a few mistakes so as to make our subterfuge less obvious – Shimmi dashes in at the last minute – again, as usual, but you’ve probably figured that out yourself.
‘What’s up, my bitches?’ She winks one minxy green eye as she chucks herself into her seat. Fortunately, there’s no time to reply – as the only obvious conclusion is that, yes, we are kind of her bitches – before Miss Webb marches through the door.
And we’re off to the start of another thrilling day of education and socialisation. Registration – to ensure that all sixteen of us, and yes that’s my whole year group, are fully present and correct – then filing down the stairs and back along the catwalk to chapel. Yes, that’s right again – I did say chapel. See, I told you this place was weird.
The morning’s in full boring swing and we are halfway through the essentially pointless General Studies, which we are all forced to take. In every other sixth form I’ve ever heard of, you get to have free periods, but here they fill them with things like General Studies or the even more nebulous ‘Study’, for which you have to sign into the school library or there’s hell to pay. They even do registration twice a day, to make double sure that we can’t escape.
So, you can imagine my delight – well hidden, of course – when the class is interrupted with a knock on the door. Miss Webb, our form teacher and deputy head, nods at the General Studies teacher, Mrs Winterton, as though they have pre-arranged this, as Mrs Winterton steps out of the way and sits down at a spare desk at the back of the room.
‘Girls, if I can have your attention for a few moments, please – and, yes, that also means you, Alice Pincott – then I’d just like to have a quick word with you all. Now, I know we’ve already started the summer term, so you probably weren’t expecting any new girls this year. Well, a bit of mid-term excitement for you, as we have two new girls starting in the Lower Sixth next week. In fact, they’re twins – Elyse and Melanie Johansson. Identical twins – so I’m sure you can have fun trying to tell them apart, and play all sorts of amusing tricks on us teachers. Elyse and Melanie will be coming in for the afternoon today for a visit, and then all being well will officially join the class next week. Any questions? Yes, Lexy?’
‘How come they’re starting in the middle of term, just like that?’
‘Well, there’s no great mystery but they left their last school unexpectedly, and we think they’ll fit in very well here, so we’ll all do our best to make them feel welcome and get straight into a normal routine with the minimum of fuss. This is important, girls – do you think you can do that? Make the twins feel welcome and really make an effort to be friendly and positive, as I know you all are?’
There is a general muttering of agreement but Shimmi, as she often does, says what we are all thinking.
‘Miss? How come you’re asking us this, like it’s a big deal? We’ve never had that with any other new girls.’
We all know she’s right. This has never happened before – not even when Jo Whitley started at the beginning of sixth form, and she clearly has an eating disorder and mental problems, or Helen Kennedy, who is lovely but so slow there’s no way she could have passed the entrance exam like a normal person.
In our school, there are basically three types. The ‘A’s, as I’ve already explained, who are pretty much medium-clever and whose parents are always just about rich enough to pay the school fees. The scholarship girls – like Shimmi and me, and Emily Waldron, who’s supernaturally good at music, and can play piano and violin practically at once.
Then there are the girls who are – and I’m not being a bitch here, it’s just the scientific truth – either a bit thick or weird, or would clearly get bullied in a bigger school, but whose parents are so rich they can give money to the school and make sure that they’re allowed in anyway. And now I am being a bitch, because I would never say it to her face – but Nathalie sort of falls into this last category.
That’s it. Those are the only categories, because it’s such a small school. My cousin Rachael says that at her school, which is much more normal and bigger than mine, even the freakiest people have friends because there are always other freaks. Not here – which is why Shimmi, Nathalie and I are kind of best friends and go around in a group even though we don’t have that much in common. We’re somewhere in the middle – which means nothing at all, except that we’re both bullied and bullies, if I’m honest. It’s a strict pecking order, eat or be
