All That Glitters

nfortunately, vanishing has its side effects.

And – as I quietly turn on to the path leading back up to my house – I can see two of them: standing on my front door step.

Without a sound, I quickly dive into a nearby bush.

Maybe there are advantages to walking around in your bare socks after all.

“Are you sure?” Nat is saying, shifting from one foot to the other. Her dark hair is curly, and hanging down her back like well-behaved snakes. “You’re certain Harriet’s not here?”

“I’m definite,” Annabel confirms gently. “Unless she’s scaled the outside wall and re-entered through her bedroom window, but given Harriet’s inherent fear of PE it seems unlikely.”

That’s putting it mildly. Frankly, there’s more chance of me growing wings and flying back in.

“It’s actually easier than it looks,” Toby says cheerfully.

Even from a few metres behind I can read the orange letters on the back of his T-shirt: VOTED MOST LIKELY TO TRAVEL BACK IN TIME, CLASS OF 2057.

“If you take the first flowerpot on the left there’s a little toe-hole in the wall just above it, and then you can use the ivy trellis as leverage the rest of the way.” He pauses. “You should probably reassess your exterior plant framework, Mrs Manners. It’s not very security-conscious.”

The corner of Annabel’s mouth twitches. “Oh, I’d imagine we will now.”

“If you want, next time I’m up there I’ll stick a little warning note on the outside of the window telling all other stalkers to go away.”

My stepmother laughs because she obviously assumes that Toby is joking.

I, however, know better.

I am literally never opening my bedroom curtains again.

“Focus, Pilgrim,” Nat says crossly, leaning to the side and poking his arm. “What kind of rubbish stalker are you, anyway? You don’t even know where Harriet is.”

“In fairness, my concentration has been a little distracted with an exorbitant level of homework, and also the TARDIS I’ve been building in my garden.”

Toby holds out bright blue fingers as evidence.

Nat stares at him for a few seconds in disgust. “What is your problem?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Toby says happily. “I’m struggling to make it look as if it has truly travelled through time and space. Any suggestions?”

There’s a silence, then my best friend sighs and turns back to Annabel. “I haven’t seen or heard from Harriet all weekend. She’s not picking up calls, she’s not answering texts and she didn’t remind me seven times about the parrot documentary on telly. I really need to talk to her.”

“She’s just jet-lagged, sweetheart. It takes a little while to settle back into a new time zone, that’s all.”

“And you don’t know where I can find her?”

There’s a tiny pause. “I don’t, I’m sorry.”

“Right.” Nat’s shoulders slump slightly. “Well.” She looks sharply up at my bedroom window, and then kicks the front doorstep a couple of times. We’ve been home six days and my best friend is not an idiot: we’re five hours ahead of New York, not in a different solar system. “I have to go to college. Will you tell her I called again?”

“Of course.” Annabel nods and looks at Toby. “And I’ll tell her you popped by too.”

“You don’t need to,” he says proudly. “She’ll know. I’ve left one of my new calling cards.” He points to the wall and there’s a little round, bright green dot stuck there. “It says TPWH™, which stands for Toby Pilgrim Was Here, Trademarked.”

“I’m impressed,” Annabel smiles. “Very organised and efficient.”

Literally nothing fazes her. She’s like Gandalf but less beardy.

Nat glances at my bedroom window again.

She kicks the doorstep a few more times.

Then, with an audible exhalation, my best friend swirls round and stomps back down the garden path in bright silver shoes.

With my stalker trailing after her.

watch Nat leave with a guilty twist of my stomach.

Then I wait as long as I can.

I am invisible. I am undetectable. I am a ninja of imperceptibility, as hidden as a leafy sea dragon, elaborately constructed to blend into my surroundings, and—

“You can come out now, Harriet.”

Oh. So – maybe not.

Slowly, I creep out from inside the bush and brush dried mud and dead leaves off my pyjama bottoms.

“You know,” Annabel says, gently removing a small spider from my eyebrow. Apparently I’m even more camouflaged than I intended to be. “I’m not enjoying all this subterfuge very much, Harriet. It’s much more your father’s style.”

“I know,” I say awkwardly. “Thanks for lying again.”

In Greek and Roman mythology there’s a three-headed dog called Cerberus who guards the entrance of the underworld to prevent the dead from escaping and the living from entering.

For the last few days, that’s exactly what my stepmother has been doing for me.

On cue, my phone beeps three times in quick succession:

When one door of happiness closes, another one opens! :) xx

A break-up is like a broken mirror. It is better to leave it broken than to hurt yourself trying to fix it! :) xx

If you walk away and they don’t follow, keep walking. :) xx

And this is exactly why I’m avoiding Nat.

Ever since I returned from America, it’s been like having my own personal therapist crossed with a woodpecker. What exactly happened? Peck. What did Nick say? Peck. Do I miss him? Peck. Was it definitely the right decision? Peck peck. Can’t we make it work? Has he been in contact? How do I feel?

Peck peck peck peck until the tree falls over.

And it doesn’t matter how many times I tell her I don’t want to talk about it, Nat has decided that we are heartbroken and she’s committed to working through it.

Together.

Incessantly, over and over and over again.

Without a single moment’s peace, and with the help of quite a lot of fridge magnets, motivational T-shirts and quotes off the internet.

Never mind picking the lock: my best friend is trying to smash me open with a sledgehammer.

I take a deep breath and type:

Very wise! Speak soon! :) x

Then I put my phone back in my pocket and glance desperately over Annabel’s shoulder at the house. I’ve got the works of Terry Pratchett waiting on my bedside table. If I take two stairs at a time, I can be balanced on the back of four elephants and a giant turtle within thirty-five seconds.

I love Nat.

She’s my best friend: the person who knows me inside and out, who can finish my sentences when I don’t even know what it is I want to say yet. But – as a magnet might tell me – I can’t start the next chapter of my life if I keep re-reading the old ones.

I just want a new story, that’s all.

“Harriet?” Annabel says as I start racing desperately towards my next escape.

I turn round blankly. “Hmm?”

“You don’t need to shut us all out, sweetheart. Me, your dad. Natalie. You can talk to us about it.”

“Sure,” I say, and then start heading back to my bedroom.

Because for the first time ever, that’s exactly the problem.

Maybe I don’t want to.

o, my plan for the next morning is as follows:

Admittedly, the last point on the list is a bit vague, but I’m leaving it up to the teachers.

That is what they’re paid for, after all.

The way I see it, yesterday was just a dress rehearsal: one that went spectacularly badly. Statistically, a first impression is usually cemented in seven seconds (although obviously I’ve disappointed people far more quickly than that).

This time, I’m not taking any chances.

At 8am, I stand on the doorstep and double-check my carefully selected outfit. A quick study of the psychology of colours has established that white clothes make strangers think you’re honest, yellow clothes make them think you’re friendly and orange implies that you’re a whole lot of spontaneous fun.

So I’m wearing a white jumper, orange leggings and yellow pumps. Hopefully this will silently represent an excellent personality before I’ve said a word.

It may even be powerful enough to make me appealing after I’ve said some too.

Then I roll my eyes at the enormous rustling purple hydrangea to my right. “Come on, Tobes. We’re friends now. Why don’t you just walk to school with me instead of hiding in bushes?”

There’s another rustle and a small squeak. Then Annabel’s cat, Victor, struts out from behind the pot with a piercing expression that says: I’m not going anywhere with you, weirdo.

Flushing slightly as a neighbour gives me the kind of glance you give to people who talk to plants, I decide to go ahead and just start walking to school on my own.

“Tobes,” I say with a small smile when I reach the tree at the bottom of my road, “you’re not being very subtle. I can totally see you …”

A squirrel runs out.

“Toby …” I say as a jogger runs past.

“Tob—” I start again, but it’s just a leaf skittering along the ground.

With growing confusion, I continue walking: past the bench Toby isn’t crouching behind, in front of the lamp-post Toby isn’t pretending to fix with a small screwdriver, past the old man with a big newspaper held up to his face.

“Sorry,” I say after I’ve pulled it down and shouted “Ha! Gotcha!”

“Girls these days,” the man snorts angrily, burying himself in it again. Which is really unfair: I’m pretty sure I’d have done that if I was a boy too.

By the time I approach the road to school and – somewhat reassuringly – spot a group of students in school uniform, I’m starting to feel a little off-centre. I hadn’t realised quite how much of my day is constructed around various degrees of pretending to be irritated with Toby.

Finally, I spot him: crouched on the floor next to the front school gates in a pale brown T-shirt with little flecks all over it. He’s obviously pretending to be a boulder. Or a huge tortoise. Or something else that would never, ever be found outside a British school in a million years.

“Toby,” I say with a huge wave of relief. “There you are. I really don’t think you need to—”

“Hello, Harriet!” he says, redoing a shoe and standing up. His pale sideburns are fluffy and sticking out, and I realise he must have grown another four centimetres over the summer: he’s starting to look like a lightning bolt. “Did you know that Velcro was inspired by the tiny hooks on a burr that stuck to the inventor’s dog? I prefer it to laces, even if evidence of string does date back 28,000 years.”

I beam at him.

That is exactly what I needed to make me feel grounded and secure this morning. A fascinating, shoe-based historical fact, guest-featuring dogs.

“That’s interesting, becau—” I start enthusiastically, but I don’t get any further because Toby sticks two thumbs up and starts powering towards the school gates, slightly-too-short trousers flapping around his ankles.

“See you later, Harriet!” he calls over his shoulder.

“But,” I stutter in amazement, “w-wait, Toby. Don’t we have class together? Shouldn’t we … go in at the same time?”

Or – you know – with him ten paces behind me.

It’s kind of a tradition.

“We’re in different forms now, Harriet!” Toby says cheerfully. “Plus I have a super important project to get on with before class starts. Have a great day!”

And my stalker disappears into school.

Leaving me following ten paces behind him.

t’s amazing what a difference a day can make.

Or – you know.

An open and functioning school you don’t have to break into.

As I push through the glass sixth-form doors, I can feel a terrified, nervous hopping sensation starting at the bottom of my stomach. It takes fifty hours for a snake to fully digest a frog, and for part of that time the frog is still alive. Given the feeling in my stomach, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve accidentally swallowed one too.

Everything has changed.

There is now noise and chaos everywhere. Classrooms and corridors are filled with people: giggling, laughing, shouting, singing. Chair legs are being scraped on the floor, various items are flying through the air – rubbers, crumpled-up notes, packets of crisps – and there’s a faint smell of board-marker and furniture polish that’s halfway between a cleaning cupboard and a sofa shop.

People I don’t recognise are stomping up and down the stairs proprietorially, and students I do know have transformed completely. Braces are off, long hair has been chopped, short hair grown and extended. Acne has erupted or disappeared. A few tentative moustaches have sprouted like shadowy upper lip infections. Everything that was banned last term is scattered defiantly: heels, short skirts, piercings, lipsticks, shaved heads. All worn with pride and triumphant chins.

It’s the same school, yet – somehow – not at all.

Sixth form has been open just four weeks and it already feels like everyone has made this world their own. Now it’s my turn.

With another froggy stomach hop, I reach the door of my new classroom and stand outside on one foot for a few seconds, peeking through the window.

Then I anxiously pull out my phone.

Really wish you were here. Hx

I press SEND and wait a few seconds.

There’s a beep.

Me too. Raid the vending machine for me. ;) Nat x

I smile – I was obviously going to do that anyway – and take a deep breath.

You can do this, Harriet. You are a goddess of insight and possibilities; a warrior of chance and fate. A goldfish of optimism and opportunity.

Oh God. My brain is shutting down already.

Then, with all the courage I can muster, I hold my breath, square my shoulders and lift my chin high.

And push into my brand-new world.

he really great thing about having the head of drama as my new form teacher this year is – thanks to my role in last year’s production of Hamlet – I already know her.

The not so great thing?

She already knows me.

“Harriet Manners!” Miss Hammond looks up from her desk so enthusiastically that the beaded fringe on her tie-dye scarf gets caught on a pencil pot. “You’ve returned to us for the second time! How utterly wonderful!”

Oh, sugar cookies. I really hope she’s not going to bring out the book I gave her. I don’t want my first introduction to the class to involve the word loo.

“You guys,” she continues chirpily, waving a hand around. There are so many bracelets, she sounds like an enormous Slinky. “For those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her before, Harriet Manners has veritably boomeranged back after a glamorous adventure in Nooooo Yaawwwk!”

I flush a little bit harder.

“Apparently Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit,” I blurt anxiously. “And twenty-five per cent of them think the sun orbits the earth.”

Oh my God. What is wrong with me?

“Which isn’t why I came back,” I add quickly, the back of my neck starting to prickle. “I like bananas.”

I like bananas.

Yup. There are over a million words in the English language, and I chose those three in that particular order to impress a group of strangers.

I am never reading a fact book again.

The students in the class murmur “Hey, Harriet” while they try to make sense of me too.

“Why don’t you plop yourself down there?” Miss Hammond says, pointing to a free seat. “We’re doing a team-building exercise first thing, so it’s perfect timing! You’re going to fit back in like a kitten in a straw basket full of other kittens. I can tell already.”

Still blushing, I walk cautiously to the corner of the class and place my satchel on the floor. Then – trying not to notice the thirty-two eyes still following me – I take out my new folders: three colours with dividers for easier organisation.

Followed by my new school diary and a set of biros.

Five pencils, an eraser, three highlighters, glue, a hole punch, ruler and Post-its. A tape-dispenser and compass. A calculator and protractor.

A full, rainbow-hued box of felt-tip pens. A traditional fountain-pen.

With little ink-pot.

Finally, I add a couple of shiny blank notepads with pictures of dinosaurs all over the front.

What? I just really like being prepared, that’s all.

When it’s all laid out neatly and at perfect right angles on my desk I feel much calmer again, so I fold my hands tightly on my lap and survey the slowly expanding class with a growing sense of excitement.

I vaguely know some of them already.

The two leads from the play last year are on opposite sides of the classroom: Christopher (Hamlet), sullen and still wearing a black polo-neck, and pretty Raya (Ophelia, obviously) with a glossy black ponytail, camel-like eyelashes and permanently pouted lips. I also recognise Eric, the school football captain, now slightly pirate-like with a shaved head and a gold hoop earring, and my old classmate Robert, who has apparently developed an interest in hair gel – the front of his hair looks like if he ran fast with his head down he could probably kill somebody with it.

Two of Alexa’s key minions – Liv and Ananya – are seated together at the back: one with pale skin and a bleached white top-knot, the other with dark skin and a large, black high-bun. They’re wearing the same floral onesies in contrasting colours and are united by identical, intensely bored expressions.

But much more excitingly, there are also at least a handful of faces I don’t recognise at all.

Which one of these is going to be my new kindred spirit?

The girl with pink glasses? She looks like she’s on first-name terms with her optometrist too. The girl with neon purple hair and a rainbow-coloured nose ring? I’m a big fan of bright colours too. How about the boy with freckles and a red bag? I, too, have freckles and a—

OK, I think I might just be clutching at similarity straws now.

Finally, almost every chair but the one next to me is taken.

“Oh, shoot a hamster,” Miss Hammond says, slapping her head lightly with her wrist. “What a twit I am! I left the register in the staffroom.” She stands up and jingles a few times. “Back in two ticks, peeps.”

And – in a whirlwind of orange and pink – our form teacher disappears into the corridor.

The room immediately starts bubbling with noise again, and I cautiously start staring hard at individuals and then giving them my brightest, friendliest smile. The kind that says I can’t wait to ask you questions and then remember the details!

A few of them actually smile back.

You know what? I like sixth form already. People are glancing at me, but it doesn’t feel hostile.

It feels curious; quizzical and interested.

I can feel my entire body starting to relax.

I was so right: this was exactly what I needed. A fresh start. A new beginning. The closure of an old page, and the opening of a new one. The unfolding of a different story.

Except it isn’t.

Because, just as I’m congratulating myself on making such an excellent – albeit fruit-enthused – first impression, the classroom door opens again. And in walks the Captain Hook to my Peter Pan; the Voldemort to my Potter.

The Cruella De Vil to my hundred spotted puppies.

Alexa.

o.

o no no no no no.

O NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONO NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO NONO.

f you yelled for one year, seven months and twenty-six days, you would produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of tea. Hook up my brain right now and I should be able to boil ten in three seconds flat.

This can’t be happening. It can’t be.

Alexa isn’t doing any of the same subjects as me. She has a totally different schedule: English, History, Geography. I was sure she had a different form room. I rang and checked with Mrs O’Connor to confirm that I’d been moved to another class, just in case.

And emailed. Five times. With a supporting text.

I thought I was finally free.

With a flick of the grown-out blonde hair which Nat chopped off for being horrible to me nearly a year ago now, Alexa strolls into the room and looks at us through heavily lined eyes.

“Hi,” 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.