looking like heinous bitches. It begins to feel almost cheerful around the sixth-form common room.
The A Group seem subtly different these days. Amie, in particular, has started to look more like the twins – a bit more eyeliner, artfully messy hair. And where Amie goes, the rest of the group follow. Frankly, I’m worried that they might start looking like my idea of cool, which would be somehow just wrong. One morning before class, I even see Amie reading a book on star signs that Elyse lent her – not only would she have dismissed this as tree-hugging hippy crap before, but it’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen her reading a book of her own accord. God, she’ll be asking to borrow my Jean Genet at this rate.
You would have thought that the twins’ dramatic entrance to the class would have put Amie and her group right off, for fear of looking like ‘freaks’ which, to those girls, is the ultimate insult. The twins don’t really fit in at all – yet somehow they have managed to integrate themselves effortlessly into a clique that is all about fitting in. Not only that, but to have some sort of weird effect on the whole group.
One Tuesday before Remedial Maths, I notice that Elyse and Melanie have both come to school with bulkier-than-usual baggage, which looks suspiciously like overnight gear – probably for one of Amie’s free-house parties. This isn’t particularly noteworthy in itself – it’s back at school on Wednesday morning that things really start to get interesting.
It’s not like I’m keeping track but, after one of her big midweek shindigs, I would not expect to see Amie at the usual bright and early hour. Instead, she would be likely to stagger in with all her cronies at the last possible moment, giggling madly, all trying their best to look jaded and saying things like ‘um, it’s a private joke – like, you kind of had to be there?’ if anyone dared to ask what was so funny.
This morning, however, Amie rocks up early, by herself. She tries to make herself look busy and refuses to meet my eye or even look in my direction. She looks, frankly, terrible. As she’s usually so perfectly groomed, to see her looking really, genuinely rough is pretty startling. Normally, I’ll admit, I’d be pathetic enough for this to make me feel better about myself. Confronted with it in the flesh, though, it’s just unsettling.
‘Amie?’ I venture, awkwardly. ‘Are you, um, OK?’
‘Just…’ she closes her eyes for a second, as though she can’t bear even to speak to me ‘…leave it, all right?’
We lapse back into a silence that is even more painful than usual. I kick myself for even trying – of course I was going to get shot down. The rest of the A gang drift in one by one, showing no semblance of having all been round at Amie’s house together the previous night. Without exception, they are purse-lipped and quiet, although none of them looks quite as obviously bad as Amie does – a detail that would usually have pissed her off no end.
Last of all, the twins come rolling in. All that is different about them is the fact that they don’t automatically go and sit with Amie. Elyse and Melanie sit down alone together at the back, and quietly start reading their books. I keep my head down and do the same, but I am intrigued.
I know I spend an inordinate amount of time bitching about the futility of my existence, but really nothing – nothing – is as bad as I feel about Games. Even though we’re in sixth form, apparently it’s still essential that we get outdoors and do some wholesome physical exercise. ‘Healthy body, healthy mind’ is one of the phrases that gets thrown around a lot, along with, ‘You’ll thank us for this when you’re older.’ Yeah, right.
Despite the sunshine, it’s not that warm today, and I swear my calves are blue when we all trail out onto the playing field. I shan’t even horrify you with tawdry tales of the changing room – just consider yourself lucky and imagine how fantastic it makes the rest of us feel when all the hotties of the class stand about chatting, nonchalant and half naked, and Alice Pincott leaps about the changing rooms in a bright-pink mesh 32D bra.
Mrs Kingsley, who is quite nice but of course really hearty and overenthusiastic, starts us off with these stupid stretches before we do anything else. This might not be quite as bad as actually playing sports, but it’s equally embarrassing when she starts on all those comedy lunges and pelvic thrusts.
‘Sorana Salem! Come on, do something, don’t just stand there looking like a wet weekend!’
This is something of a recurring theme.
‘Yeah, come on, Sorana!’ Lexy White chimes in, right on cue. ‘You’re not feeling faint, are you? You look like you haven’t eaten in about a week.’
I thought we’d all grown up a bit and got over this sort of thing of late – clearly that’s over. In fact, the A Group seem to be going depressingly back to normal. Lexy and all of the other girls in that little gang are basically perfect size-tens, and woe betide anyone who isn’t – if they’re not snidely accusing me of being anorexic even though I eat more than most of them put together, then they’re making snorting noises whenever Helen Kennedy so much as cracks open an oatcake.
The irony is that, while I’d literally move into Nando’s and sleep on the floor if they’d let me, Jo Whitley really is anorexic. She’s not that much skinnier than me, to be fair, but it’s in a really wrong way – like she’s clearly not meant to be that size, and so she’s all angular and out of proportion. Even in summer she wears about four jumpers and says she feels cold. Somehow she’s got away with wearing long black tracksuit bottoms for Games without getting in trouble, and, although she practically needs help walking as she’s so frail, she gets mostly left alone. There’s a strange sort of power in being that close to the edge; it takes a lot of dedication to starve yourself slowly to death.
‘Right, girls – hockey today!’
My heart sinks – hockey’s got to be the absolute worst. Mrs Kingsley blows her whistle and the match starts, with all the usual players baying for blood and the rest hanging back hopelessly. As I shiver and dread the ball coming anywhere near me, I am pleased to notice that Melanie seems just as apathetic as I am about physical activity.
I hang back and drift off into my own world – a happy place of books, red velvet cake and Trouble Every Day – until Mrs Kingsley starts puffing away manically on her whistle and yelling her head off.
‘That’s a penalty! Shimmi Miah, it is not funny to pretend to be playing tennis with a hockey stick – someone could get hurt. Elyse, why don’t you take this one for the reds?’
Elyse saunters up to the white line and looks as if she couldn’t give a flying anything about this stupid game of hockey – she practically sneers at the ball. Then she squares her shoulders and lines up her stick and stares a flinty look into the distance, before slamming the ball with all of her might.
Mrs Kingsley starts shouting something about above-the-waist punts being illegal, but it’s way too late. The ball is sailing through the air and we’re all gazing at it, as if hypnotised, including Amie Bellairs, which must be why it smashes her full in the face quite as badly as it does.
There’s a collective intake of breath, as I’m sure I actually hear a smashing noise. The ball hits Amie so hard that it knocks her over onto the wet grass. Everyone starts rushing towards Amie and, as they’re all so busy doing that, I wonder if I’m the only one who notices the cool-blue look that passes between Elyse and Melanie.
Alice Pincott is sent off to get the school nurse, while Amie struggles to her feet from within a protective cocoon of people. When she stands up and lowers her cupped hands slightly from her face, it takes me a second
