LITMIR.BIZ

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she says with a small cat-smile.

      “How are you all today?”

      She’s the only person I know who can make a general greeting sound like a specific death threat.

      “Lexi! Over here!” Ananya sits up straighter and sticks a hand in the air. “Thank God you’re here: this class is so boring.”

      “Ohwowowow,” Liv squeaks, bopping up and down in her seat, “areyoukiddingLexiyoulookamazingtodayIlove yourskirtI’vetotallygotonejustlikeitexceptit’sredanda differentlengthandshapebutit’sprettymuchidentical.”

      When an elephant lies down it only needs to breathe four times a minute. Every time Liv gets excited, I can’t help wondering if she has a similar lung capacity.

      Alexa ignores them and swivels to look in my direction.

      I’m not kidding: her entire face has just lit up. As if she’s six, it’s Christmas morning and I’m a solid gold bike somebody’s left under the tree.

      The frog in my stomach has suddenly gone very still.

      “Do you mind if I take this seat?” she says, sashaying towards me in sharp-heeled black boots: the kind you can skewer somebody’s soul with.

      “Yes,” I say as clearly as I can. “Immensely.”

      But apparently it’s a rhetorical question, because Alexa kicks back and puts her feet on our desk, knocking my compass on to the floor.

      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

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