suddenly flooded with a wave of shame and guilt so intense I almost fall over. Because I’m going to be honest: if there was another bright side to being stuck in a cupboard, it was that I couldn’t be anywhere else.
Somewhere even worse.
I look at the floor. “I suppose I did promise,” I admit in a small voice. “And she is my best friend.”
Only friend.
Now is probably not the time to make that clarification.
“Exactly.” Nick grins and leans towards me. “It’ll be fun. No biggy.”
We all know what he means when he says that, which is: exactly the opposite. I try to look cross, which is almost impossible when you’re being kissed.
“Next you’ll be telling me to break a leg,” I mutter grumpily.
Nick laughs and grabs my hand. “Come on, Table Girl. There’s a train to your school in fifteen minutes. I’ll walk you to the station.”
It’s 6:30pm on a Saturday evening, and I’m now standing back outside the gates of what should really be a closed building. Usually I’d be delighted to be here out of hours, but right now, frankly, there are other places I’d rather be.
Anywhere, actually.
The winds on Neptune reach at least 2,000 kilometres per hour and are capable of ripping a building to shreds. After a bit of consideration, I’d probably choose to hang out there instead.
“Where have you been?” Nat charges towards me like Boudicca on the back of a chariot: perfectly straightened hair flying, perfectly lined eyes narrowed and what I guess is an expensive silver handbag wielded like some kind of boxy shield. “I’ve been calling for hours and left a billion messages and—” She frowns and looks down. “Harriet, why do you have a ring of dirt around your waist?”
I tug at my stripy jumper. I now look like a grubby human version of Saturn. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
My best friend takes a deep breath and then lets it out with one smooth hand gesture, like a composer about to conduct an orchestra. “It’s OK. There’s still time.”
Sugar cookies. There was still a tiny bit of me hoping I’d managed to totally miss the whole thing.
The horrible, selfish, terrible-friend part, obviously.
Break a leg.
Oooh. That’s quite a good idea. If I can just find a few stairs to fall down, I might be able to—
“Don’t even think about it,” Nat snaps as I start frantically searching the school corridors for some kind of stepped elevation. “I mean it, Harriet. Don’t even think about thinking about it. You’re auditioning for Hamlet with me if I have to wheel you up there in a shopping trolley.”
Every now and then I wish I didn’t have a best friend who knows me inside and out.
Now is definitely one of those times.
“But you don’t even like Shakespeare, Nat,” I point out. I’m going to give it one last shot. “You use Julius Caesar to prop up your magnifying mirror.”
Nat pulls a face, and I suddenly realise how nervous she is. There’s a pink flush on her neck and she’s nibbled off all but one varnished nail: her stomach must be full of tiny bits of blue enamel.
Nat sticks her thumb in her mouth and starts attacking the final nail. “This is my last chance, Harriet. If I can’t be a model then an actress is the next best thing, right? Maybe I can get some kind of lipstick campaign this way instead.”
I flinch.
This is exactly why I agreed to audition with her in the first place. Three months ago, I accidentally stole my best friend’s lifelong dream of modelling while on a school trip in Birmingham. The least I can do is support her while she tries to find a different one.
I just wish she’d picked astrophysics. Or gardening.
“Please?” Nat adds in a tiny voice. “I think I might really enjoy it.”
She gives me the round-eyed look I’ve been a sucker for since we were five, and I rally and put my arm around her. “You’re going to be amazing, Nat. Let’s do it. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Then we open the door to the gym and that question is no longer rhetorical.
Apparently dolphins shed the top layer of their skin every two hours, and there’s a chance I may now be turning into one. It feels like every cell on my outer body is falling off far too quickly for a human being.
This can’t be happening. It can’t be.
But it is.
In the gym hall are two chairs featuring Mr Bott, our English teacher, and our drama teacher, Miss Hammond. On a makeshift stage in the middle is a Year 10 boy, attempting some kind of half-hearted backflip. On the floor is what appears to be nearly half of our entire year group, chatting quietly and playing on their phones: all one hundred and fifty of them.
And right at the front, in the middle of a number of her minions, is the person I thought was least likely to turn up for an extracurricular play audition.
My bully of ten years, my nemesis, my arch-enemy, my foe.
The girl in the world who hates me the most.
Alexa.
I’ve turned up for two auditions in the last four hours. Why couldn’t this be the one I got locked in a cupboard for?
Nat’s face has gone so abruptly white that her blusher is standing out like the two pink spots on a Russian doll.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers as we slip in and sit quietly on the floor at the back. “Why is everybody here? I thought it would be just the drama keen-beans.”
And with one swift chew, the last few shreds of blue nail varnish disappear.
“Apparently, if you take part in the play you don’t have to do homework for the entire duration of
