LITMIR.BIZ

      THE NEXT MORNING, I was finishing off my toast when there was a knock on the door.

      I opened it. Swallowed. Flinched. Tried not to wince.

      ‘What was it this time?’ I asked the girl with black scruffy hair standing on my doorstep.

      ‘Hydrogen peroxide and sodium iodide.’ She grinned at the memory, which seemed to make her glow with happiness. ‘I threw some soap into the beaker to see how much gas was in there and BOOM!’

      ‘Bad reaction?’ I asked, glancing at the weeping raw sore where Neena’s right eyebrow used to be.

      ‘Only from Mum,’ she muttered, jerking her head to indicate the smart-looking woman behind her. ‘The experiment itself went perfectly.’

      ‘Mujhe takat dijie,’ said Neena’s mum, which I know is Hindi for Give me strength because Mrs Gupta says it about Neena so often.

      We shared a knowing look.

      Neena went through a lot of eyebrows in the name of science. Basically, when she wasn’t talking, dreaming or thinking about it, she was holed up in a rat-infested shed in her garden, rearranging her face with a dangerously out-of-date chemistry set from a charity shop.

      *

      Neena and I were born three hours apart. Our mums met in the maternity ward and bonded over a box of home-made Sohan Halwa sweets Mrs Gupta had smuggled in. As a baby, I’d never taken that much notice of Neena, being more interested in things like crying and dribbling, but that all changed at my fifth birthday party. When every other boy and girl started sobbing in my lounge just six minutes after arriving, she’d simply stared at them and went back to shaking each of my presents calmly.

      One by one, the other kids were whisked away by their concerned parents – ‘So sorry we can’t stay,’ they’d all said. ‘My little angel’s never done this before – must be a sudden temperature, probably got a bug or something. No, honestly, don’t worry about party bags – wouldn’t want to put you out …’ Cheery Cottage had gradually emptied. Ten minutes into my party, Neena was the only guest left.

      I held my breath. Our mothers hovered nervously, holding huge platters of food they’d slaved over all morning. I looked at Neena. Neena looked at me. And then she said something so wise, so profound, so comforting, that I’ve never forgotten it. She said: ‘Cake.’

      The four of us polished it all off that afternoon. Neena also sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me extra loudly, helped me open every single present and refused to leave until we’d sung ten rounds of ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’. From that day on we’d been best friends for life.

      *

      ‘Ready to go?’ asked Mrs Gupta.

      As we set off for school, Neena threw me an appraising glance. ‘Something’s different about you today,’ she said.

      ‘Is it my hair?’ I patted it carefully. I’d taken extra time over my ponytail that morning, making sure each strand was lying flat. Every detail counted on the first day of the Grittysnit Star competition.

      ‘No.’

      ‘My shoes?’ I pointed my feet with a flourish.

      ‘Sorrel, they’re always shiny.’

      ‘Do I look taller?’ I asked casually.

      Neena threw me a sympathetic glance. ‘Nope.’ She examined me again. ‘I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s definitely something new about you.’

      ‘Maybe it’s my face. Have I got an inner glow?’

      ‘You what?’ said Neena, frowning.

      ‘You know, cos of the Grittysnit Star competition?’

      ‘It sounds like a load of old methane gas to me.’ She kicked a drinks can out of her way. ‘A holiday means I’ll be away from my lab for a whole seven days.’ She stared into the distance as if she couldn’t think of anything worse. ‘And Mum and Dad will try to drag me out to the beach and stuff. Anyway, I’m hardly off to a great start. Not with this.’ She pointed to the patch of skin where her eyebrow used to be, bright red in the September sunshine, and smirked.

      Neena had a point, but I didn’t want to gloat.

      When we reached the underpass, she stopped suddenly. ‘Hang on, Mum. This is important.’ Her eyes raked over me. ‘I know what it is! You’re crumpled!’ She stared at my grey shirt approvingly. ‘What happened, Sorrel? Was the iron broken? You’re nearly as scruffy as me.’

      At this point, I should have just given up altogether. Forgetting to iron my uniform in the morning was so unlike me I should have recognised it as the sign of doom it was, right there and then.

      I might as well have started wearing a leather jacket and tearing around town on a motorbike, such were my chances of winning that competition.

      Someone should just have tattooed on my forehead, which might not have looked very nice, but at least would have acted as a handy hint whenever I brushed my teeth, and saved me from an awful lot of guesswork.

      But, this being real life, none of that actually happened. And even though I was totally unprepared for the malevolent dark power I’d unearthed, I still thought I was in control of my life, which was kind of sweet, while also completely wrong.

      So I turned on my heel, pushing against the hordes of Grittysnit pupils swarming around us.

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