Wednesday 3 August

I stop thinking about myself and focus on practical things. Other people are being wrecked by PSST, and I can help them. Step one: look for clues. Idiots always leave clues.

There’s a photo of me on the page, a shot from my old school in the country. I’m in Science class, wearing protective glasses and a white lab coat, frowning slightly in front of a Bunsen burner and holding a test tube. I’m in study mode, looking studious, which is why my old school asked if they could use the photograph. I’m the poster-girl for the well-behaved. So no clues there; anyone could have pulled my photo off my old school’s website.

I scroll back through old posts. It’s not just about people from our school or Basildon. There are comments about girls from other private schools. There are comments about guys, too, but only the ones who don’t fit the mould. I make a list of all the private schools that are linked to the posts, and all the ones in the area, but it’s way too many to make the problem solvable.

It could be anyone, is the depressing fact. I think it’s a guy, but all that does is narrow what it is an impossibly large field. Ben has a theory that anonymity sets the ID free. Looking at the posts and the comments, it’s pretty clear he’s on to something.

I can’t hack it, and even if I could find out how, the source code for a site like this is basically untouchable. The simplest option would be to get the admin password. But getting that would mean I’d have to know the administrator, which I don’t, and besides, it wouldn’t do me any good without their computer. If I had the computer, I could write a plug-in, and mess with the site that way.

I don’t have time to keep going now because I have orchestra practice this afternoon. As the Winter Fair gets closer, we’ve been having extra practices, in addition to the one on Friday. This is annoying because I’m trying to avoid Oliver. I know he didn’t say anything about me. I know he wouldn’t. But every time I see him I think about how stupid I must sound at the pool. It’s like the PSST post has coloured everything about me. I’m fighting against it, but I’m not having a whole lot of success.

At practice, Iris is edgy because we have our tutoring session with Gregory on Wednesday afternoons and she doesn’t want us to be late. One, he doesn’t add on time at the end, and two, if he thinks we’re not turning up, he leaves. Iris told him we’d be late, but Gregory suffers from selective memory when there’s something else he has to do.

‘Everyone has somewhere else to be,’ Oliver tells her, suggesting she stop complaining because it only makes things worse. If I were talking to him, I’d agree.

‘Are you still ignoring me?’ he asks before we start.

‘No.’

‘Have you listened to the CD?’

‘Too busy being mute while having screaming sex.’

‘That has nothing to do with me,’ Oliver says.

You bet it doesn’t, I’m about to say, but this isn’t Oliver’s fault.

‘I know,’ I tell him, and put all my focus on the music and Mrs Davies.

After orchestra, Iris has to get a book, so she rushes out and says she’ll meet me in the library. I think Oliver’s gone too, but he’s standing at the door of the auditorium.

I walk off. He walks off too. I’m being an idiot, so I slow down and let him catch me.

‘You need to play the CD.’

‘I really haven’t had time,’ I say, and he writes his mobile number on a piece of paper. The numbers are neat and square – like Oliver, I think – and then I remember him on the stage and now the numbers look neat and square and slightly edgy. ‘You can’t win alone,’ he tells me.

‘Thank you very much,’ I say, but I take the number.

He’s got that look of fierce concentration that makes him strangely attractive, but I don’t have long to contemplate it because Iris texts: What’s taking so long? Ready to start.

*

I sit in tutoring, trying to concentrate on Gregory’s voice, looking at the physics on the page, but hearing Oliver’s voice and thinking about the CD. ‘Kate,’ Gregory says, and taps his pencil on the table. ‘The scholarship exam is hard. You mightn’t know as much as you think.’

I force myself back to the page and work through the problem he’s pointing at. I’ve missed a piece of it, and my answer’s wrong. I know it as soon as I’m done and I go back to correct it. If he hadn’t pulled me up I’d have made a dumb mistake and lost marks.

‘He’s right,’ I say to Iris on the way back to the boarding house. The light is gone. I’d love this light if I were on the farm because I’d be inside with a fire. I’m hit with homesickness and I remind myself that I’ll be home for the long weekend in three weeks.

‘We’ll study together,’ Iris says. ‘Catch you up.’

I’m grateful for her kindness.

Later, when Iris is asleep, I take the CD out of the drawer. I stare at it for a while, and think back to Oliver’s fierce look. You can’t win alone seems to suggest that I might win, if I’m not too stubborn to ask for help.

Mum told me once in a deep and meaningful, that she worried about me sometimes. Everything comes easily to you. You’ve never had to struggle. ‘That’s a good thing,’ I said, and she agreed, to a point. I don’t remember what she said after. All I remember is falling asleep and waking to a pink sky.

I haven’t listened to the CD because I know who’s on it: Juliette, the girl from Orion. Oliver’s message will be clear: unless you play like her, you don’t have a chance. Be like here, he’s saying. But I can’t do that. I haven’t had the experience.

I put the music on, bracing myself for jealousy. Instead, I feel wonder. I listen to the most amazing music – wonky and rolling. A strange road built out of notes.

It’s Oliver. I’ve played next to him for long enough to know that. A playing style is as distinctive as a voice. Oliver is stubborn and authentic.

The other player sounds familiar but it’s not Juliette.

I take out his number. Who’s the other player? I text.

Finally, he texts back. The other player is you.