Starting Over (4 page)

‘On a scale of one to ten, about minus three,' I said in a loud whisper because I didn't want anyone listening in.

‘What? Can't hear you. It sounds like you're in the middle of a railway station.'

‘Feels like it too,' I said in a louder voice, then added, ‘IT'S TOTAL CRAP.' Unfortunately the last part was at the very
moment when everyone in the hall fell simultaneously silent for a nano-second. A hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at me. I immediately did what my brother Lewis does when he's done a SBD (silent but deadly smell). I looked at a girl sitting next to me as if it had been her who had shouted. She gave me a very strange look back.

‘That bad?'

I decided to revert back to whispering. ‘I've even got detention.'

‘Detention?
Cool.'

‘No, Erin, not cool. It's my first day. I'm supposed to be making a good impression.'

‘Yeah, but detention's a great way to meet people, particularly the bad boys, and don't forget that's where I first got off with Scott Malone. So why did you get detention? What did you do?'

‘Late.'

‘Late? But you only live a short way away and you told me you had timed the journey.'

‘Er, yeah ... I did. Long story. Later.' I didn't want to risk anyone in the hall overhearing the real reason I wasn't on time and I certainly couldn't have told the teacher on late duty who had been hovering like a wasp just inside the school gate. I'd promised Dylan. When neither of us had offered up a good excuse, the teacher had handed us both detention slips, looked at my dripping hair, muddy knees and jacket, and directed us to the main hall with a disapproving frown.

‘O-kaaay. Long story. Ohmigod. You saw Joe didn't you? That's why you were late?'

‘Er, sort of, no.
Later,
Erin.'

‘OK, I got you. You can't talk. OK, so call me as soon as you can, yeah?'

‘Yeah. Just needed to check in for a mo, hear a friend's voice, that's all.'

‘Gotcha. I can hardly hear you anyway so save your phone credit for when we can speak properly, yeah?'

‘I guess,' I said reluctantly.

‘Love you loads. Go get ‘em girl,' said Erin, and hung up.

I didn't want to hang up as talking to Erin had given me something to do. I was tempted to sit there for a moment and carry on chatting even though there was nobody at the other end, but then I thought that was really sad so I put my phone away and looked around the hall. I shifted about on the bench I was sitting on and did my best to look cool, although I felt awkward and self-conscious, like I had a huge neon sign over my head flashing
NEW GIRL, SHE HAS NO MATES
and an arrow pointing to me. Everyone seemed to know each other because, of course, they did. The majority had been attending school here together for four or five years and were sitting eating crisps, glugging water, juice and Diet Cokes, checking each other out, catching up, laughing, gossiping, all so at ease with their situation and surroundings. I wished Kate or Joe would come along so that I would have someone to talk to, but of course they didn't. The Sixth Formers have their own
common room on the third floor.

So far it had been a totally crap morning. After attempting to clean off my legs and muddy jacket in the girls' cloakroom after assembly, one of the prefects who was organising the Year Sevens (hundreds of them) and other newcomers (me) had escorted me to meet my class teacher, Mrs Goldman. She was a big blonde lady with glasses, slightly buck teeth and an enormous bust, but she looked approachable enough and she smelled nice - of strawberries. She was already taking register and thirty heads swivelled to look at me when I walked in the classroom. It was
exactly
the arrival I hadn't planned on as thirty pairs of eyes checked me out while I tried to assume a friendly-but-interesting-and-cool expression. Sadly, trying to convey three different attitudes at the same time was beyond my dramatic prowess. I think I looked more like I'd just sucked on a lemon at exactly the same time as someone had put a pin in my backside. Probably not my best look for making a good first impression. Mrs Goldman introduced me to the class, most of whom had lost interest and turned back to what they were doing after my initial sizing up. I went to the back of the room, where I had the best vantage from which to view my fellow classmates while Mrs Goldman called their names. I took special note when she said, ‘Leela Ranjani,' and a pretty Indian girl with a plait on the right of the class answered, ‘Here, Miss.'

Not long after the register was over, a bell shrilled, but everyone stayed where they were so that Mrs Goldman could
go through everyone's timetable and subjects for the coming year. She paid me extra attention and confirmed that I hadn't changed my mind about the subjects that I'd indicated I wanted to do when I first applied for a place at the school (art, English language, English literature, maths, science, French, RE, media studies, history and music. Ten subjects. Erk!). Plus she told me that I must do at least one after-school activity ‘to show a contribution to a group project which could also be counted as part of my coursework'. An after-school activity! On top often GCSE subjects! I was hardly going to have time to breathe.

But I liked Mrs G. She seemed comfortably mumsy and genuinely concerned that I settled in all right. After giving me a printout of my timetable and a map of the school, she took me down a maze of corridors and introduced me to my assigned ‘buddy' who was to show me around in the second period. Her name was Nicole Hewitt and she was one of those impeccable blondes whose complexion was so milky perfect that she looked like she had been cracked out of styrofoam packaging only that morning. She was clearly a teacher's pet. At first I thought she was going to be a total Goody-two-shoes type, but as soon as we were out of any adult's earshot, she relished the job of filling me in on any gossip on just about everyone who went past.

‘See her?' she whispered as a girl with a ton of black kohl round her eyes slouched past. ‘Total tart. If you ever like a boy in the school, steer
well
clear of her as she'll have him off you before you can say Bacardi Breezer.'

‘See him?' she said when a boy with bleached blond hair sauntered past and gave me a wink. ‘My mate Ruby snogged him last year for a dare. Never again. Cheese-and-onion breath. Like,
bleugh
... And that guy there?' I followed her glance to see a very cute boy with shoulder-length dark hair at the far end of the corridor. ‘Callum Hesketh. Sixth Former. School babe,' she drawled. ‘Everybody wants him, but he's very picky .. .' She was fun. Before break, she had shown me all the main areas of the school, plus where the cloakrooms were on different floors (and which ones honked the most and were best avoided), the library (and the best place in there for a sneaky doze or place to text your mates without the librarian seeing - v. useful), staff room (only to be used in emergency or they get v. sniffy and take it out on you later), the canteen, the gym (where apparently Marie Cox, Year Eleven, lost her virginity to Ian Matthews, Year Twelve).
Oo-er, there were none of these types of shenanigans happening at my last school! Least not that I knew about,
I thought as up and down and round and round we walked. After a while, it all became a blur of corridors, doors, windows and stairs. It was a big school with well over a thousand pupils and seemingly endless departments; it would take me years to know my way around.
Someone ought to make a sat-nav for school,
I thought as we hit yet another wing.
They'd make a fortune.

As soon as the bell went for break, classroom doors opened and in a flash those same empty corridors flooded with a tsunami of teenage bodies of all shapes and sizes. I flattened myself against a wall so as not to get caught up in the surge of
activity. I hoped that Nicole would fill me in some more but her phone had bleeped that she had a message, and after she'd checked it she directed me to the hall, shoved me in through the double doors and, with a cheery ‘Later,' had left me to it.

I noticed a few boys check me out and a couple of girls looked at me quizzically then turned away as if they found nothing of interest. As I was wondering where to go and sit, I noticed Leela come in behind me. I took a deep breath and plunged in.

‘Hey, I know your sister, Anisha. She said to say hi. I'm India Jane.'

‘Oh hi,' said Leela with a friendly smile. She was very like her sister, with the same liquid brown eyes and delicate features, but not quite as tall. She was about to say something else when a striking-looking black girl rushed towards her and almost strangled her from behind with a huge bear hug. Leela looked apologetic and shrugged her shoulders as she was dragged away, so I smiled back and shrugged my shoulders too. I wasn't going to follow her like a desperate hanger-on. She clearly had start-of-term catching up to do with a mate, so I went and sat on the opposite side of the room and called Erin. Once I'd hung up, I got out my timetable to glance over in the pretence that I was ‘oh, so busy busy' and when I saw that art was my next subject, inspiration struck. The art room. Art was my favourite subject. It was also Joe's favourite subject. There was the slightest chance that he would be in there. Maybe, maybe not, but anything was better than sitting looking like a total saddo.

I asked a boy by the door for directions, first to the area where the Year Sevens would be so that I could check in on Dylan, and then to the art unit. He mumbled which way to go so I set off in the direction that he pointed. After getting totally and completely lost, I bumped into Nicole who was lounging by a radiator with a girl with black hair cut into a sleek bob. She oozed sophistication, which was no mean feat considering she was dressed in school uniform, but somehow she managed to make it look like it was totally stylish.

‘Ruby - India Jane . . .' Nicole said.

Ruby arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow and glanced over me. ‘Heard all about you,' she drawled. ‘First day?'

I nodded. Even though, at five foot eight, I was as tall as her and Nicole, for some reason I felt smaller, immature and like I was a peasant who had come up from the country. Her phone rang and she turned away to answer it and Nicole pulled out her phone and made a call of her own.

As they were chatting, I noticed the cute Sixth Former I'd clocked earlier walk past. Nicole had told me that he was the school babe. It was hard not to notice him as he was probably the best-looking boy I'd seen in the school so far (apart from Joe of course). He saw me glance at him and began to come over.
Probably to talk to Ruby,
I thought as I straightened up and assumed my best cool look.

‘New girl,' he said with a nod in my direction as he sauntered past.

I did a double check to make sure that he wasn't talking to
anyone else but no, he was definitely talking to me.

‘Actually I'm fifteen,' I replied. ‘So not
that
new.'

He laughed and his eyes crinkled up in an appealing way. ‘New to the school, I meant,' he said. ‘New to me.' When he said that, he looked straight at me and I felt a frisson of chemistry.
Ooh la la,
I thought,
things are looking up.

He ambled off and Ruby finished her call, looked after him, then back at me. ‘Callum Hesketh,' she said flatly.

‘Cute,' I said.

She nodded. ‘Don't go there.'

‘Does he have a girlfriend?'

‘Is our headmistress a killjoy? Duh. Get in line if you fancy Callum. He has an entourage of girlfriends.'

‘What's he doing around out here when the Sixth Formers have their own common room and canteen?'

Ruby laughed. ‘He likes to be seen. Likes to check out the new girls. And most of his admirers are in the younger years so take my advice and don't take him seriously. He's just checking out virgin territory.'

I felt myself blush and hoped that Ruby hadn't noticed. How did she know that I was a virgin?

‘Virgin as in new to
him,
I meant,' said Ruby.

(So she
had
noticed me blush.) ‘Do
you
fancy him?'

Ruby shook her head. ‘Not old enough for me.'

‘My friend Erin was into older —' I started, but Ruby hadn't paused for breath.

‘Anyhow, been there, got the Callum T-shirt,' she continued.
‘We dated in Year Eight. Didn't work.'

‘Why not?'

‘Opposites attract, people that are similar repel. Law of physics. And we can't both be the centre of attention.'

I laughed. Ruby seemed like a laugh. She turned back to Nicole, who was still on her phone. ‘Got to go. Laters,' she said and set off down the corridor.

‘Laters,' said Nicole as she finished her call.

Without looking back, Ruby gave us a wave over her shoulder. She was clearly the type of girl who was so confident that she knew that people stared after her when she walked away.

Nicole rolled her eyes when Ruby disappeared around a corner. ‘Sorry for abandoning you earlier, but Ruby had boy trouble. Had to do urgent counselling. Ruby can't half pick them.'

I was dying to ask more, but thought I'd better not be too nosey on first meeting so instead I smiled. ‘No matter. I was fine.'

‘So what's next?'

‘Art,' I said. ‘I was trying to find the art room, and got lost.'

‘I've got Spanish, but I'll show you where to go,' said Nicole and she linked arms with me and dragged me off in completely the opposite direction to the way the boy had pointed.
Creep,
I thought,
he was having a laugh at my expense. Yeah. Very funny. Not.

‘So you don't know anybody at the school, hey? That must be really hard . . .'

‘No. My kid brother started with me . . .'

‘Kid
brother. Shame.'

‘I have others,' I said eagerly. For some weird reason, I found that I wanted to impress Nicole. And her friend Ruby. ‘Two older brothers. One is married. That's Ethan, but Lewis isn't. He's a student.' And then I realised that I was offering my brother up like a kid in the playground with sweets, hoping to win favour by having something Nicole wanted. (Mind you, knowing Lewis, he would have been delighted to meet both of them.)